 Chapter 64, Part 2 of the History of the Declined and Full of the Roman Empire, Volume 6. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on the volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Anna Simon. The History of the Declined and Full of the Roman Empire, Volume 6 by Edward Gibbon. Chapter 64, Part 2. The arms of Gingis and his lieutenants successfully reduced the hordes of the desert who pitched their tents between the Wall of China and the Volga, and the Mogul Emperor became the monarch of the pastoral world, the lord of many millions of shepherds and soldiers who felt their united strength and were impatient to rush on the mild and wealthy climates of the south. His ancestors had been the tributaries of the Chinese emperors, and Temigun himself had been disgraced by a title of honor and servitude. The court of Peking was astonished by an embassy from its former vessel, who, in the tone of the King of Nations, exacted the tribute and obedience which he had paid, and who affected to treat the Son of Heaven as the most contemptible of mankind. A haughty answer disguised their secret apprehensions, and their fears were soon justified by the march of innumerable squadrons who pierced on all sides the feeble rampart of the Great Wall. Ninety cities were stormed or starved by the Moguls. Ten only escaped, and Jingis, from a knowledge of the filial piety of the Chinese, covered his vanguard with their captive parents, and unworthy and by degrees of fruitless abuse of the virtue of his enemies. His invasion was supported by the revolt of a hundred thousand Qitans who guarded the frontier. Yet he listened to a treaty, and the princes of China, three thousand horses, five hundred youth, and as many virgins, and a tribute of gold and silk with the prize of his retreat. In his second expedition he compelled the Chinese emperor to retire beyond the Yellow River to a more southern residence. The siege of Peking was long and laborious. The inhabitants were reduced by famine to decimate and devour their fellow citizens. When their ammunition was spent they discharged the ingots of gold and silver from their engines, but the Moguls introduced a mine to the centre of the capital, and the conflagration of the palace burned above thirty days. China was desolated by Tartar war and domestic faction, and the five northern provinces were added to the empire of Jingis. In the west he touched the dominions of Mohammed, Sultan of Karism, who reigned from the Persian Gulf to the borders of India and Turkestan, and who, in the proud imitation of Alexander the Great, forgot the servitude and ingratitude of his fathers to the house of Seljuk. It was the wish of Jingis to establish a friendly and commercial intercourse with the most powerful of the Muslim princes, nor could he be tempted by the secret solicitations of the Caliph of Baghdad, who sacrificed to his personal wrongs the safety of the church and state. A rash and inhuman deed provoked and justified the Tartar arms in the evasion of the southern Asian. A caravan of three ambassadors and one hundred and fifty merchants were arrested and murdered at Otraq by the command of Mohammed, nor was it till after a demand and denial of justice till he had prayed and fasted three nights on a mountain that the Mughal emperor appealed to the judgment of God and his sword. Our European battles, says a philosophic writer, are petty skirmishes if compared to the numbers that have fought and fallen in the fields of Asia. Seven hundred thousand Mughals and Tartars are said to have marched under the standard of Jingis and his four sons. In the vast plains that extend to the north of the Sihon, or Jaxartes, they were encountered by four hundred thousand soldiers of the Sultana, and in the first battle, which was suspended by the night, one hundred and sixty thousand Charismians were slain. Mohammed was astonished by the multitude and valor of his enemies. He withdrew from the scene of danger and distributed his troops in the frontier towns, trusting that the barbarians, invincible in the field, would be repulsed by the length and difficulty of so many regular sieges. But the prudence of Jingis had formed a body of Chinese engineers skilled in the mechanic arts, informed perhaps of the secret of gunpowder and capable, under his discipline, of attacking a foreign country with more vigor and success than they had defended their own. The Persian historians were relayed the sieges in reduction of Otrar, Kohende, Bohara, Summercant, Charism, Herat, Marau, Nisabur, Balch, and Kandahar, and the conquest of the rich and populist countries of Transoxiana, Charism, and Chorazan. The destructive hostilities of Attila and the Huns have long since been elucidated by the example of Jingis and the Mughals, and in this more proper place I shall be content to observe that, from the Caspian to the Indus, they ruined a tract of many hundred miles, which was adorned with the habitations and labours of mankind, and that five centuries have not been sufficient to repair the ravages of four years. The Mughal Emperor encouraged or indulged the fury of his troops. The hope of future possession was lost in the ardour of Rhaepain and Slauta, and the cause of the war exasperated their native fierceness by the pretence of justice and revenge. The downfall and death of the Sultan Mohammed, who expired, and pitied, and alone, in a desert island of the Caspian Sea, is a poor atonement for the calamities of which he was the author. Could the Charismian Empire have been saved by a single hero, it would have been saved by his son Gala-Ledin, whose active Vela repeatedly checked the Mughals in the career of victory? Retreating as he fought to the banks of the Indus, he was oppressed by their innumerable host Till, in the last moment of despair, Gala-Ledin spurred his horse into the waves, swam one of the broadest and most rapid rivers of Asia, and extorted the admiration and applause of Genghis himself. It was in this camp that the Mughal conqueror yielded with reluctance to the murmurs of his wary and wealthy troops, whose side for the enjoyment of their native land. Encumbered with the spoils of Asia, he slowly measured back his footsteps, betrayed some pity for the misery of the vanquished, and declared his intention of rebuilding the cities which had been swept away by the tempest of his arms. After he had reparsed the oxes in Jacques Sartis, he was joined by two generals whom he had detached with thirty thousand horse to subdue the western provinces of Persia. They had trampled on the nations which opposed their passage, penetrated through the gates of Durbent, traversed the Volga in the desert, and accomplished the circuit of the Caspian Sea by an expedition which had never been attempted, and has never been repeated. The return of Genghis was signalized by the overthrow of the rebellious or independent kingdoms of Tartary, and he died in the fullness of years and glory, with his last breath exalting and instructing his sons to achieve the conquest of the Chinese empire. The harem of Genghis was composed of five hundred wives and concubines, and of his numerous progeny, four sons illustrious by their birth and merit exercised under their father the principal offices of peace and war. Tushy was his great huntsman, Zagatai his judge, Oktai his minister, and Tuli his general, and their names and actions are often conspicuous in the history of his conquests. Firmly united for their own and the public interest, the three brothers and their families were content with dependent sceptres, and Oktai, by general consent, was proclaimed great Khan, or Emperor of the Moguls and Tatas. He was succeeded by his son Gaiuk, after whose death the empire devolved to his cousins Mangu and Kublai, the sons of Tuli, and the grandsons of Dzingis. In the sixty-eight years of his full first successes, the Moguls subdued almost all Asia and a large portion of Europe. Without confining myself to the order of time, without expatiating on the detail of events, I shall present a general picture of the progress of their arms. One in the east, two in the south, three in the west, and four in the north. One, before the invasion of Zingis, China was divided into two empires or dynasties of the north and south, and the differences of origin and interest was smoothed by a general conformity of laws, language and national manners. The northern empire, which had been dismembered by Zingis, was finally subdued seven years after his death. After the loss of Peking, the emperor had fixed his residence at Kaifeng, a city many leagues in circumference, and which contained, according to the Chinese annals, fourteen hundred thousand families of inhabitants and fugitives. He escaped from thence with only seven horsemen, and made his last stand in a third capital, till at length the hopeless monarch, protesting his innocence and accusing his fortune, ascended a funeral pile, and gave orders that, as soon as he had stabbed himself, the fire should be kindled by his attendants. The dynasty of the Song, the native and ancient sovereigns of the whole empire, survived about forty-five years the fall of the northern usurpers, and the perfect conquest was reserved for the arms of Kublai. During this interval the moguls were often diverted by foreign wars, and if the Chinese seldom dared to meet their victors in the field, their passive courage presented an endless succession of cities to storm and of millions to slaughter. In the attack and defense of places, the engines of antiquity and the Greek fire were alternately employed. The use of gunpowder in cannon and bombs appears as a familiar practice, and the sieges were conducted by the Mohammedans and Franks who had been liberally invited into the service of Kublai. After passing the Great River, the troops and artillery were conveyed along a series of canals, till they invested the royal residence of Hanzhou, or Quincei, in the country of silk, the most delicious climate of China. The emperor, a defenceless youth, surrendered his person in Sceptre, and before he was sent in exile into Tartary he struck nine times the ground with his forehead to adore and prayer or thanksgiving the mercy of the Great Khan. Yet the war, it was now styled a rebellion, was still maintained in the southern provinces from Hanzhou to Canton, and the obscenate remnant of independence and hostility was transported from the land to sea. But when the fleet of the Song was surrounded and oppressed by a superior armament, their last champion leapt into the waves with his infant emperor in his arms. It is more glorious, he cried, to die a prince than to live a slave. A hundred thousand Chinese imitated his example, and the whole empire, from Tonkin to the Great Wall, submitted to the Dominion of Kublai. His boundless ambition aspired to the conquest of Japan. His fleet was twice shipwrecked, and the lives of a hundred thousand moguls and Chinese were sacrificed in the fruitless expedition. But the Circumjacent kingdoms, Korea, Tonkin, Coshinchina, Peku, Bengal, and Tibet were reduced in different degrees of tribute and obedience by the effort or terror of his arms. He explored the Indian Ocean with a fleet of a thousand ships. They sailed in sixty-eight days, most probably to the Isle of Borneo under the equinoctial line, and though they returned not without spoil or glory, the emperor was dissatisfied that the savage king had escaped from their hands. II. The conquest of Hindustan by the moguls was reserved in a later period for the House of Timur, but that of Iran or Persia was achieved by Haloguk Khan, the grandson of Zhingis, the brother and lieutenant of the two successive emperors, Mangu and Kublai. I shall not enumerate the crowd of sultans, emirs, and atabex whom he trampled into dust, but the extirpation of the assassins or Ismelians of Persia may be considered as a service to mankind. Among the hills to the south of the Caspian these odious sectaries had reigned with impunity above a hundred and sixty years, and their prince or imam established as lieutenant to lead and govern the colony of Mount Libonus, so famous and formidable in the history of the crusades. With the fanaticism of the Koran the Ismelians had blended the Indian transmigration and the visions of their own prophets, and it was their first duty to devote their souls and bodies in blind obedience to the vicar of God. The daggers of his missionaries were felt both in the east and west. The Christians and the Muslims enumerate and persons multiply the illustrious victims that were sacrificed to the zeal, avarice, or resentment of the old man as he was corruptly styled of the mountain. But these daggers, his only arms, were broken by the sword of Hologu, and not a vestige is left of the enemies of mankind except the word assassin, which in the most odious sense has been adopted in the languages of Europe. The extinction of the Abbasids cannot be indifferent to the spectators of their greatness and decline. Since the fall of their Seljukian tyrants the Caliphs had recovered their lawful dominion of Baghdad and the Arabian Iraq, but the city was distracted by theological factions and the commander of the faithful was lost in a harem of seven hundred concubines. The invasion of the Moguls he encountered with feeble arms and haughty embassies. On the divine decree, said the Caliph Mostasam, is founded the throne of the sons of Abbas, and their foes shall surely be destroyed in this world and in the next. Who is this Hologu that dares to rise against them? If he be desires of peace, let him instantly depart from the sacred territory, and perhaps he may obtain from our clemency the pardon of his fault. This presumption was cherished by a profiteous vizier who assured his master that even if the barbarians had entered the city, the women and children from the terraces would be sufficient to overwhelm them with stones. But when Hologu touched the phantom, it instantly vanished into smoke. After a siege of two months Baghdad was stormed and sacked by the Moguls, and their savage commander pronounced the death of the Caliph Mostasam, the last of the temporal successors of Muhammad, whose noble kinsmen of the rays of Abbas had reigned in Asia above five hundred years. Whatever might be the designs of the conqueror, the holy cities of Mecca and Medina were protected by the Arabian desert. But the Moguls spread beyond the Tigris and Euphrates, pillaged Aleppo and Damascus, and threatened to join the Franks in the deliverance of Jerusalem. Egypt was lost had she been defended only by her feeble offspring, but the Mamluks had breathed in their infancy the keenness of a Scythian heir. Equa and Vela, superior in discipline, they met the Moguls in many a well-thought field, and drove back the stream of hostility to the eastward of the Euphrates. But it overflowed with the resistless violence the kingdoms of Armenia and Anatolia, of which the former was possessed by the Christians and a letter by the Turks. The sultans of Econium opposed some resistance to the Mogul arms, till Azadin sought a refuge among the Greeks of Constantinople, and his feeble successors, the last of the Seljukian dynasty, were finally extopated by the Khans of Persia. Three. No sooner had Octai subverted the northern empire of China than he resolved to visit with his arms the most remote countries of the west. Fifteen hundred thousand Moguls and Tatas were inscribed on the military roll. Of these the great Khan selected a third which he entrusted to the command of his nephew Batu, the son of Tuli, who reigned over his father's conquests to the north of the Caspian Sea. After a festival of forty days Batu set forwards on this great expedition, and such was the speed and ardour of his innumerable squadrons that in less than six years they had measured a line of ninety degrees of longitude, a fourth part of the circumference of the globe. The great rivers of Asia and Europe, the Volga and Kama, the Don and Baristunus, the Vistula and Danube, they either swam with their horses or passed on the ice, or traversed in leathering boats which followed the camp, and transported their wagons in artillery. By the first victories of Batu, the remains of national freedom were eradicated in the immense plains of Turkestan and Kipsak. In his rapid progress he overran the kingdoms as they are now styled of Estrican and Kazan, and the troops which he detached towards Mount Caucasus explored the most secret recesses of Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. The civil discord of the great dukes or princes of Russia betrayed their country to the Tatars. They spread from Livonia to the Black Sea, and both Moscow and Kiev, the modern and the ancient capitals, were reduced to ashes, a temporary ruin less fatal than a deep and perhaps indelible mark which a servitude of two hundred years has imprinted on the character of the Russians. The Tatars ravaged with equal fury the countries which they hoped to possess and those which they were hastening to leave. From the permanent conquest of Russia they made it deadly, though transient, inroad, into the heart of Poland, and as far as the borders of Germany. The cities of Lublin and Krakow were obliterated. They approached the shores of the Baltic, and in the battle of Lignitz they defeated the dukes of Silesia, the Polish Palatines, and the great master of the Tudonic order, and filled nine sects with the right ears of the slain. From Lignitz, the extreme point of their western march, they turned aside to the invasion of Hungary, and the presence or spirit of Batu inspired the host of five hundred thousand men. The Carpathian hills could not be long impervious to their divided columns, and their approach had been fondly disbelieved till it was irresistibly felt. The king, Bela IV, assembled the military force of his scouts and bishops, but he had alienated the nation by adopting a vagrant horde of forty thousand families of Comans, and these savage guests were provoked to revolt by the suspicion of treachery and the murder of their prince. The whole country north of the Danube was lost in a day, and depopulated in the summer, and the ruins of cities and churches were overspread with the bones of the natives, who expiated the sins of their Turkish ancestors. The Necklasiastic, who fled from the sack of Verden, describes the calamities which he had seen or suffered, and the sangranary rage of sieges and battles is far less atrocious than the treatment of the fugitives, who had been allured from their woods under a promise of peace and pardon, and who were coolly slaughtered as soon as they had performed the labours of the harvest and vintage. In the winter the Tartars pasted a nube on the ice, and advanced to Gran or Stragonium, a German colony, and the metropolis of the kingdom. Thirty engines were planted against the walls, the ditches were filled with sacks of earth and dead bodies, and after promiscuous massacre three hundred noble matrons were slain in the presence of the Khan. Of all the cities and fortresses of Hungary, three alone survived the Tartar invasion, and the unfortunate Bata hit his head among the islands of the Adriatic. The Latin world was darkened by this cloud of savage hostility. A Russian fugitive carried the alarm to Sweden, and the remote nations of the Baltic and the ocean trembled at the approach of the Tartars, whom their fear and ignorance were inclined to separate from the human species. Since the invasion of the Arabs in the eighth century Europe had never been exposed to a similar calamity, and if the disciples of Mohammed would have oppressed her religion and liberty it might be apprehended that the shepherds of Skithia would extinguish her cities, her arts, and all the institutions of civil society. The Roman pontiff attempted to appease and convert these invincible pagans by a mission of Franciscan and Dominican friars, but he was astonished by the reply of the Khan that the sons of God and of Zhingis were invested with a divine power to subdue or extirpate the nations, and that the pope would be involved in the universal destruction unless he visited in person and as a supplement the royal horde. The emperor, Frederick II, embraced a more generous mode of defence, and as letters to the kings of France and England and the princes of Germany represented the common danger and urged them to arm their vessels in this just and rational crusade. The Tartars themselves were awed by the fame and valor of the Franks. The town of Neustadt in Austria was bravely defended against them by fifty knights and twenty crossbows, and they raised the siege on the appearance of a German army. After wasting the adjacent kingdoms of Servier, Bosnia and Bulgaria, Batu slowly retreated from the Danube to the Volga to enjoy the rewards of victory in the city and palaces of Sarai, which started at his command from the midst of the desert. Four. Even the poor and frozen regions of the north attracted the arms of the moguls. Shabani Khan, the brother of the great Batu, led a horde of fifteen thousand families into the wilds of Siberia, and his descendants reigned at Toboskoy above three centuries till the Russian conquest. The spirit of enterprise which pursued the cause of the Obi and Yenisei must have led to the discovery of the ICC. After brushing away the monstrous fables of men with dogs' heads and cloven feet, we shall find that fifteen years after the death of Zingis, the moguls were informed of the name and manners of the Samoyeds in the neighborhood of the Polar Circle, who dwelled in subterranean huts and arrived their furs and their food from the sole occupation of hunting. End of Chapter 64, Part 2 Chapter 64, Part 3 of the history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Volume 6. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Vera Unreal. Chapter 64, Mongols Automatax, Part 3 In this shipwreck of nations, some surprise may be excited by the escape of the Roman Empire, whose relics, at the time of the Mongol invasion, were dismembered by the Greeks and Latins, less potent than Alexander. They were pressed like the Macedonian, both in Europe and Asia, by the shepherds of Scythia. And had the daughters untaken as each, Constantine must have yielded to a fate of peaking, some account, and acted. The glorious 713 retreat of Part 2, from the Danube, was insulted by the Vain Trump of the Franks and Greeks. And in the second expedition, death surprised him in full march to attack the capital of the Caesars. His brother Borger carried the tartar arms into Bulgarian Thrace, but he was diverted from Byzantine war by a visit to Novogorod, in the 57th degree of latitude, where he numbered the inhabitants and regulated the tributes of Russia. The Mongol Khan formed an alliance with the Mamluks against his brethren of Persia. 300,000 horse penetrated through the gates of Durban, and the Greeks might rejoice in the first example of domestic war. After the recovery of Constantinople, Michael Pelaiu-Logos had a distance from his court and army in the Thraceian castle by 20,000 tartars. But the object of their march was a private interest. He came to a difference of precedent, the Turkish Sultan, and were content with his person and the treasure of the Emperor, the General Nogar, whose name is perpetuated in the hearts of Estrucans, raised a formidable rebellion against Venkotimu, the third of the Khans of Kipsa, obtained in marriage Maria, natural daughter of Pelaiu-Logos, and guarded the dominions of his friend and father, the subsequent invasions of the Scythian castes, those of outlaws and fugitives, and some thousands of Anani and Kormans, who had been driven from their native seats, were reclaimed from a vagrant life and enlisted in the service of the Empire. Such was the influence in Europe of the invasion of Mongols, the first terror of their arms secure, rather than to stir the peace of the Roman Asia, the Sultan of Iconium, solicited a personal interview with John Fatakis, and his artful policy encouraged the Turks to defend their barrier against a common enemy, that barrier indeed was soon overthrown, and the servitude and ruin of the Seljukans exposed the nakedness of the Greeks. The formidable Hologo, threatened to march the Constantinople at the head of 400,000 men, and the groundless panic of the citizens of Nice, will present an image of the terror, which he had inspired. The accident of a procession, and the sound of the doleful litany, from the fury of the Tartars, goodlucked to the vast, had scattered the hasty report of an assault in Messica. In the blind credulity of fear, the streets of Nice were crowded with thousands of bold sexes, new not from what or to whom they fled, and some hours elapsed before the firmness of the military officers could leave their city from this imaginary foe. But their ambition of Hologo and the successes was fortunately developed by the conquests of Bacty, in the long visit of Syrian wars. The hostilities turned Muslims, inclined them to unite with the Greeks and Franks, and their generosity Ocontem had offered the Kingdom of Anatolia as a reward of an amazing vessel. The fragments of the Seljukian monarchy were disputed by the Emias, who had occupied the cities or the mountains, but they all confessed the supremacy of the Counts of Persia, and he often interposed his authority, and sometimes his arms, to check their depredations, and to preserve the peace and balance of his Turkish frontier. The death of Kazan, one of the greatest and most accomplished princes of the health of Tignis, removed this salute-free control, and the decline of the Mongols gave a free scope to the rise and progress of the Ottoman Empire. Footnote 34, several parts of the Mongols in Hungary might propagate and counter the part of the Union and make three of the kings of the Franks on the confines of Bulgaria. I offer Garius, after 40 years, beyond the Tiberias, might be easily deceived. Footnote 35, Zipakimel, and the false alarm at Nice. Footnote 36, Agrobolita, Footnote 37, Amulfar Garius, wrote in the year 1284, declares that the Mongols, since the fabulous defeat of Bato, had not attacked either the Franks or Greeks. And of this, he is a competent witness. Hating likewise, the Armenian Prince celebrates their friendship for himself and his nation. Footnote 38, Pekimel, gives us the splendid character of Kazan Khan, the rival of Cyrus and Alexander. In the conclusion of his history, he hopes much from the arrival of 30,000 Tokas or Tatas, or ordered by the success of Kazan, to restrain the tucks of Bethlehem. Footnote 39, the origin of the Ottoman dynasty is illustrated by the critical learning of Madame de Ville and Don Ville, two inhabitants of Paris, from whom the Orientals may learn the history and geography of their own country. Note, they may be still more enlightened by the Geschichte des Osmanterges, by M. von Harman-Borgstahl of Vienna. After the retreat of Stingy's, the southern Galalidine of Charismy had returned from India to the possession and defense of his Persian kingdoms. In the space of 11 years, then he rolled fought in person for 14 battles, and such was his activity that he led his cavalry in 17 days, from southeast to Kerman, a march of a thousand miles. Yet he was oppressed by the jealousy of the Muslim princes and the innumerable armies of Mongols. And after his last defeat, Galalidine perished normally in the mountains of Cunistar. His death was resolved by a veteran and adventurous army, which included under the name of Charismyans, or Charismans, many turkmen hordes that had attached themselves to the southern fortune. The bolder and more powerful chiefs invaded Syria and validated the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. The Mohamal engaged in service of Elidine, Sultan of Iconium, and among these were the obscure fathers of the Ottoman line. They had formerly pitched their sense near the southern banks of the Okses in the plains of Mahan and Nusa. And it is somewhat remarkable that the same structure produced the first authors of the Parthen and Turkish empires at the head or in the rear of a Charismian army. Suleyman Shah was drowned in the passage of the Euphrates. His son, Othegrul, became the soldier and subject of Elidine, and established Surkut on the banks of the Sana'a. He came with 400 families, or tens, whom he governed 52 years, more than peace and more. He was the father of Thalman, or Othman, whose Turkish name has been melted into the appellation of the Caliph Othman. And if we describe the pastoral chief as a shepherd and a robber, we must separate from those characters all ideas of ignominy and baseness. Othman possessed, and perhaps the past, the ordinary virtues of a soldier, and the circumstances of time and place, but propelled to us to his independence and success. Their self-druclintancy was normal, and the resistance and decline of the Mongol clans soon enfranchised him from the control of a superior. He was situate on the verge of the great empire. The Quran sanctified his ghazi, a holy war, against the infidels, and their political errors unlocked the passage of Mount Olympus, and invited him to the sand into the plains of Bithynia. Till the reign of Palaiologues, these pastors had been vigilantly guarded by the militia of the country, who were paid by their own safety, and an exemption from taxes. The empire abolished their privilege and assumed their office, but their tribute was rigorously collected. The custody of the pastors was neglected, and the hardy mountaineers degenerated into a trembling crowd of pheasants without spirit or discipline. It was on the 27th of July, in the year 1299 of the Christian era, the Ottoman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia, and the singular accuracy of the date seems to disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructive growth of the monster. The annals of the 27 years of this reign will exhibit a repetition of the same enraged, and several retreat troops were multiplied in each campaign by the accession of captives and volunteers, instead of retreating to hell. He maintained the most useful and defensive posts, fortified the sounds in castles which yet first pitch and renowned the pastoral life for the baths and passes of his infant capsules. But it was not so often more suppressed by ancient infirmacies that he received the welcome news of the conquest of Prusa, which had been surrendered by famine or treachery to the arms of his son Orton. The glory of Orton as chiefly founded on their office descendants, by their talks have transcribed a composed royal testament of his last councils of justice and moderation. Footnote 40, Sipehema, in concerning the guard of the mountains, Iqiforos Gregoras, in the first book of Launicos per condoles, the Athenian. Footnote 51, I am ignorant whether the Turks have any writers other than Muhammad II, nor can I reach Pion Amiga Chronicle, analei Durkiki at Anum, translated by John Gaudier, and published by Leon Glavius at Galgamelal Nic Galagond, with copious pandex or common trees. The history of the growth and decay of the Ottoman Empire was translated into English from the Latin ms of Symmetrius Cantamia, Prince of Montavia. The author's guilty of strange plandest in Oriental history, but he was conversant with the language, the annals, and the institutions of the Turks. Cantamia partly draws his materials from the synopsis of Sa'ani, Effendi of Larissa, dedicated in the year 1696 to Sultan Mustafa, an evaluable enrichment of the original historians. In one of the remblests, Dr. Johnson praises Naals, a general history of the Turks to present year as the first of historians, and had the only image of his subject. Yet I much doubt whether partial improbable compilation from Latin writers, 1300 folial pages of features and battles, can either instruct our views in the night at the age, which requires from the historian some tincture of philosophy and criticism. No, we could average that M von Hammer had given a more clear and distinct reply to this question of given. In a note, von Hammer shows that they had not only seeks religious writers and then lawyers, but poets and authors on medicine. But the inquiry I've given obviously refers to historians. The oldest of the historical works, of which von Hammer makes use, is the Tariji Asikbasha Sa'ani. That is, the history of the great grandson of Asikbasha, was in service and celebrated as Asikbasha and the reign of Murat. Murat, the first. I'll note the author of the work, left during the reign of Padre Zek the second, but he says, derived much information from the book of Sheikh Jaxi, the son of Amius, was immoral to Sultan Orshan and whole-related from the lips of his father. The circumstances of the earliest Ottoman history this book, having searched for it in vain for five and twenty years, are all that are found at Lang the Vatican. All the other Turkish histories on his list, as indeed this, were written during the reign of Muhammad the second. It does not appear whether any of the rest cite the authorities of equal value with that claim by the Tariji Asikbasha Sa'ani. From the conquests of Prusa, who may date the true era of the Ottoman Empire, the lives and possessions of the Christian subjects were redeemed by a tribute or ransom of 30,000 crowns of gold. In the city, by the labors of Orshan, assumed the aspect of the Muhammadan capital. Prusa was decorated with a mosque, a college, in the hospital, a Friar Foundation. The South Turkian coin was changed by the name and impression of the new dynasty. And the most scuffle professors of human and divine knowledge attracted the Persian and Arabian students from the Asian schools of Oriental learning. The office of a Vizier was instituted for editing, the brother of Orshan, and a different habit, distinguished the citizens from the pheasants, the Muslims from the infidels. Other troops of Orshan had consisted of those squadrons of Turkmen Cavalry, who served without pay and fought without discipline. But a regular body of infantry was established and trained by the providence of Isan. A great number of volunteers was enrolled with a small stipend, but with the permission of living at home, unless they were cemented to a field, the root miners, and seditious tempah. This was Orshan to educate his young captives and his soldiers and those of the prophet. But the Turkish professors were still allowed to mount on half-bed and follow his standard with the appellation and the hopes of free booters. By Vizier, he formed an army of 35,000 Muslims, a train of veteran engines was trained for the use of sieges. And the first successful experiment was made on the cities of Nice and Comedia. Orshan granted a safe conduct to all who were the serialists of departing with their families in the fax. But the widows of the slain were given marriage to a conqueror and the sacrifices paid to them, the books, the vases, and the emigrants, the sole aransum at Constantinople. The emperor and Jornikas to the younger was vanquished and wounded by the son of Orshan. He subdued the whole province, the whole kingdom of Bethany, as far as the shores of the Bosphorus and Hellasports. And the Christians confessed the justice and clemency of a reign which claimed the voluntary attachment of the Turks of Asia. Yet Orshan was content with the modest types of Emyar. And in the list of his compilers, the princes of Rome or Anatolia, his military forces were surpassed by the Emyars of Carmean and Caramania. Each of them could bring into a field an army of 14,000 men. There's a maze with situate in the heart of the self-drucant kingdom. But the holy warriors, though of inferior note, form new principalities on the Greek Empire and more conspicuous in the light of history. The maritime country from the Papatis to Mayanda and the Isle of Rhoads, so long threatened and so often pillaged, was finally lost about the 13th year of the Atronicus of the Elder. Two Turkish chieftains, Seruqan and Aydin, left their names to the conquest. And they conquest their prosperity. The captivity of Rohit and the seven churches of Asia was consummated and the barbarous lot of Ionia and Lulia still tremble on the monuments of classic and Christian antiquity. In the loss of Ephesus, the Christians support the fall of the first angel, the extinction of the first candle-stick, of the revelations. The desolation is complete. In the temple of Sienna, of the Church of Mary, they'll equally leave the search of the Curious Traveler. The Circus and Free Stately Theatres of La Viglia are now people with wolves and foxes. Sardis is reduced to a miserable village, the God of Mahomei, without a rival or a son. This invoked in the mosques of Kiyateria and Pergamus and the populousness of Smolna is supported by the foreign trade of Franks and the Mayans. Philadelphia alone has been saved by prophecy of courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the empress, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant citizens defend their religion and freedom above false couriers. And that length, capitulated with the powders of the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect. A column in a scene after rent, a pleasing example, that the paths of honour and safety may sometimes be the same. The servitude of rhodes was laid about two centuries by the establishment of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. Until the discipline of order, the island merged into fame and opulence, the noble and warlike monks were run out by land and sea, and the blowout of Christendom provoked and repelled the arms of the Turks and Saracens. Footnote 42 Cato Poussene Though he laid the battle and heroic fight of a younger Andronicus, the symbols by silence, the loss of Prusa, Lys and the Comedia, which are fairly confessed by Nikiforos Grigoras. It appears that Lys was taken by Archan in 1330 and the Comedia in 1339, which is somewhat different from the Turkish dates. Footnote 53 The partition of the Turkish Amiens was extracted from two contemporaries, the Greek Nikiforos Grigoras and the Arabian Maragisci. See likewise the first book of Thaunikus, Gal-Gondulis, Footnote 54 Bacchimil. Footnote 55 See the travels of Rila and Spong of Polkot and Chanda and more particularly Smith's Survey of the Seven Charges of Asia. The Montpiers Antiquaries labor to reconcile the promises and threats of the author of the revelations with the present date of seven cities. Perhaps it would be more prudent to confine his predictions to characters and events of his own times. Footnote 56 Consult the fourth book of the Histoire de l'Ortre de Mardes Pech la B. de Vertu. That pleasing writer betrays his ignorance in supposing that Othman, a free-booter of the Bithynian hills, could be siege-willed by Sienet. They are Greeks by their intestine divisions with the authors of the final ruin. During the several walls of the elder and younger Antionikus, the son of Othman achieved, almost without resistance, the conquest of Bithynia. The same disorders encouraged the Turkish emirs of Rudia and Ionia to build a fleet. And to pledge their adjacent islands in the sequels of Europe. In the defense of his life in Nara, Kant Agusene was tempted to prevent or imitate his adversaries by calling to aid the public enemies of his region and country. Amir, the son of Aydin, concealed under a Turkish guard the humanitarian plight and self-agreed. He was united with a great domestic by mutual esteem and reciprocal services. And a friendship is compared in the vein rhetoric of the times to the perfect union of arrestees and bulandis. On the report of the day, Jarvan's friend, who was persecuted by an ungrateful cocked, the Prince of Ionia assembled at Morina, a fleet of 300 vessels, with an army of 29,000 men, sailed in the depths of winter, and cast anchor at the mouth, sailed in the depths of winter, and cast anchor at the mouth of a heiress, from Prince, with a chosen ban of 2,000 tux, he marched along the banks of the river and rescued their empress, who was besieged into Mautica by the wild barbarians. And at disastrous moment, the life or death of his beloved Katakuzene was continued by his fight into Serbia. But that great, full arrene, impatient to behold her to the river, invited him to enter the city and accompany her message with the present of which her parallel had a hundred horses. By a peculiar strain of secrecy, the gentle preparing refused, in the absence of an unfortunate friend to visit his wife or to taste the luxuries of the palace, sustained in his den, the rigour of winter, and rejected the hospitable gift that he might share in the hardships of 2,000 companions, always deserving as himself that of honour and distinction. Necessity and revenge might justify his predatory exertions by CNNs. He left 9,500 men for the guard of Veseli and Persevillet in the fruitless search of Katakuzene. This emocation was hastened by fictitious letter, the severity of the season, the glamorous of his independent troops, and the weight of his spoils and captives. In the prosecution of the Civil War, the Prince of Ionia, twice returned to Europe, joined his arms with those of the Emperor, besieged Therasonica, and threatened Constantinople. Calumni might affix some approach on his imperfect late, Stacey departure, in the bright of 10,000 crowns, which he accepted from Byzantine court. But his friend was satisfied, and the conduct of Ionia is excused by the more sacred duty of defending against the Lettons. His hereditary dominions. The maritime power of the Turks had united the court, the King of Cyprus, the Republic of Venice, and the Order of Saint John in allowable crusade. Their galleys invaded the cause of Ionia, and their near was slain with an arrow. It led them to rest from the rolling night, the Cerdo of Smyrna. Before his death, he generously recommended another ally of his own nation, not more sincere or zealous than himself, but more able to afford a prompt and powerful succor by his situation along the Pappantes, and in the front of Constantinople. By the prospect of a more advantageous treaty, the Turkish prince of Ionia was detached from his engagements with Anna Savoie. In the plight of Orton, dictated the most fallen pretentions that if he could obtain the daughter of Kanta Kuzenu, he would invariably fulfill the duties of a subject and a son. Parental tenderness was silenced by the voice of a mission. The Greek plurgy, alive at the marriage of a Christian princess, with a sectarian of Mahomet, and the father of Fyldora the Scratch, with shameful satisfaction, led his honor out of Pappo. A body of Turkish cavalry attended the ambassador's hall to send out from 30 vessels before his camp of Senubia. A stately pavilion was erected, in which the Empress Irene passed the night with her daughters. In the morning, Fyldora ascended a throne, which was surrounded with curtains of silk and gold. The troops were under arms, but the emperor alone wasn't past that. At a signal, the curtains were suddenly withdrawn to the skull of the bride of the victim, encircled by kneeling eunuchs and hymenial torches. The son of Fruits and Trumpets proclaimed the joyful event, and her pretended happiness was a theme of the show song, which was chanted by such poets as age could produce. Without the right of a church, Fyldora was delivered to a bar restaurant, but it had been stipulated that she should preserve her religion in the harem of Bosa, and her father celebrated her charity and devotion in this ambiguous situation. After this peaceful establishment on the throne of Constantinople, the Greek emperor visited his selfish ally, who with four sons by various wives expected him at Skutari on the Asian sexual. The two princes parted of seeming causality of the purchase of banquets of the trades, and Fyldora was permitted to repulse the vows for us and to enjoy some days and society of a mother. But the friendship of auction was subservient to his religion and interest, and the legion would be useful to join without a blush the enemies of Kantakuzene. For not point six, Nygivoros Gregoras has expatiated with pleasure on this amiable character. Kantakuzene speaks with honor in his team of his ally, that he seems ignorant of his own sentimental passion for sex, and indirectly denies the possibility of such a natural friendship. For not point eight, after the conquest of small nine motherlands, there's a fence of literature that's imposed by Pope Gregory XI on the Knights of Rulks. For not point nine, Sikantakuzenos, Nygivoros Gregoras, who, for the light of Mount Thabo, brands the emperor with names of tyrants and herons, excuses rather than blames. There's Turkish marriage and the digest of the passion and power of ocean. He afterwards celebrates his kingdom in armies. Sees reign in Fantamere. In the tree team of the Empress Anne, the Ottoman prince had inserted a singular condition that it should be lawful for him to sell his prisoners at Constancy and Paul, or transport them to Asia, and they get crowd of questions of all sexes and the re-age. Of priests and monks, of masons and virgins, was exposed in the public market. The work was regaling youth who broke in the charity of redemption. And the indigent Greeks deployed the fate of their brethren who were led away to a worse evils of temporal and spiritual bondage. Sikantakuzenos was reduced to subscribe for same terms, and that execution must have been so more penitious to the empire. A body of 10,000 Turks had been the texture assistance of the Empress Anne. By the entire forces of auction were exerted in the service of his father. Yet these calamities were of a transient nature. As soon as the storm had passed away, the fugitives might return to their habitations and let the conclusion of civil and foreign wars. Europe was completely evacuated by the masons of Asia. It was in this last quarrel that his pupil, Sikantakuzenos, inflicted such a deep and deadly wound, which could never be healed by his successors, and which is probably expirated by his illogical dialogues against a perfect moment. Ignorant of their own history, the modern Turks confound their first and final passage of the Holy Sponsor, and describe the sign of auction as a nocturnal robber who, with 80 companions, explores by such a jump a hostile and unknowing chore. Salimah, and a head of 10,000 horse, was transported in the vessels and entertained as a friend of the Greek Emperor. In the civil wars of Romania, he performed some service and perpetrated mama's chief, but a carousel Nesus was insensibly filled with a Turkish colony, and the Byzantine court solicited in vain the restitution of the fortress's authorize. After some upvote delays between the Ottoman Prince and his son, the ransom was valued at 60,000 crowns, and the first payment had been made by an earthquake shock the walls and cities and provinces. This mental places were occupied by the Turks and Gallipoli, the key of the heathbond, was rebuilt and repealed by the quality of Salimah. The abdication of Canto Cusini dissolved a female band of semester-alances, and his last advice acknowledged his countrymen since he climbed the Raj Fortes and compared their own weakness with the numbers in their land, the discipline and enthusiasm of the Muslims. His prudent councils were despised by the headstrong vanity of youth, and soon justified by the victories of the Ottomans. But as he practiced in fields, the exercise of the chariot, Salimah was killed by a foal from his horse, and the aged Orjan wrapped an expire on two of his valiant son. Footnote 50, the most lively and concise picture of his captivity may be found in the history of Lucas, who fairly describes what Canto Cusini confesses with a guilty blush. Footnote 51, in this passage, and the first conquest in Europe, Cantamia gives a miserable idea of a selfish gut, nor am I much better satisfied with child consulis, they forget to consult the most authentic recall, and the fourth book of Canto Cusini. I likewise regret the last books, which are so manuscript of Nikiforus Gregorus. No, Conchama excuses the silence with which the Turkish historians part of the Allianzikos of the Ottomans of that European continent, of which enumerate sixteen different occasions, as if they this day in those peaceful encasions, by which they gain no conquest, and establish no permanent footing on the Byzantine territory. Other romantic count of Salimah's first exposition, he says, as yet the pulse of history had not asserted as right over the poetry of tradition. This event has caused me to be accepted as satisfactory by my historian of the decline and fall. End of chapter 64, part 3. Chapter 14, part 4 of the history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, volume 6. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Morgan Scorpion. The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, volume 6 by Edward Given, chapter 14, part 4. But the Greeks had not time to rejoice in the death of their enemies, and the Turkish scimitar was wielded with the same spirit by Amirath I, the son of Orcan, and the brother of Solomon. By the pale and fainting light of the Byzantine annals, we can discern that he subdued without resistance the whole province of Romania or Thrace, from the Helispont to Mount Hymus, and the verge of the capital, and that Adrianople was chosen for the royal seat of his government and religion in Europe. Constantinople, whose decline is almost co-evil with her foundation, had often, in the lapse of a thousand years, been assaulted by the barbarians of the east and west. But never till this fatal hour had the Greeks been surrounded, both in Asia and Europe, by the arms of the same hostile monarchy. Yet the prudence or generosity of Amirath postponed for a while this easy conquest, and his pride was satisfied with the frequent and humble attendance of the Emperor John Peiologus and his four sons, who followed at his summons the court and camp of the Ottoman Prince. He marched against the Slavonian nations between the Danube and the Adriatic, the Bulgarians, Serbians, Bosnians and Albanians, and these warlike tribes who had so often insulted the majesty of the empire were repeatedly broken by his destructive inroads. Their countries did not abound either in gold or silver, nor were their rustic hamlets and townships enriched by commerce or decorated by the arts of luxury. But the natives of the soil have been distinguished in every age by their hardiness of mind and body, and they were converted by a prudent institution into the firmest and most faithful supporters of the Ottoman greatness. The vizier of Anurath reminded his sovereign that, according to the Muhammadan law, he was entitled to a fifth part of the spoiling captives, and that the duty might easily be levied if vigilant officers were stationed in Gallipoli to watch the passage and to select for his use the statist and most beautiful of the Christian youth. The advice was followed, the edict was proclaimed, many thousands of the European captives were educated in religion and arms, and the new militia was consecrated and named by a celebrated dervish. Standing in the front of their ranks he stretched the sleeve of his gown over the head of the former soldier, and his blessing was delivered in these words, let them be called janissaries, youngy terry, or new soldiers. May their countenance be ever bright, their hand victorious, their sword keen, may their spear always hang over the heads of their enemies, and wheresoever they go may they return with a white face. Such was the origin of these haughty troops, the terror of the nations and sometimes of the sultans themselves. Their valor has declined, their discipline is relaxed and their tumultory array is incapable of contending with the order and weapon of modern tactics, but at the time of their institution they possessed a decisive superiority in war, since a regular body of infantry in constant exercise under pay was not maintained by any of the princes of Christendom. The janissaries fought with the zeal of proselytes against their idolatrous countrymen, and in the battle of Kosovo the league and independence of the Slavonian tribes was finally crushed. As the conqueror walked over the field he observed that the greatest part of the slain consisted of beardless youths and listened to the flattering reply of his vizier that age and wisdom would have taught them not to oppose his irresistible arms. But the sword of the janissaries could not defend him from the dagger of despair. A Serbian soldier started from the crowd of dead bodies and Amorath was pierced in the belly with a mortal wound. The grandson of Othman was mild in his temper, modest in his apparel and a lover of learning and virtue, but the Muslims were scandalised by his absence from public worship and he was corrected by the firmness of the mufti, who dared to reject his testimony in a civil cause. A mixture of servitude and freedom not unfrequent in Oriental history. The character of Bajazet, the son and successor of Amorath, is strongly expressed in his surname of Ildurim or the Lightning and he might glory in an epithet which was drawn from the fiery energy of his soul and the rapidity of his destructive march. In the fourteen years of his reign he incessantly moved at the head of his armies from Bursa to Adrianople from the Danube to the Euphrates and though he strenuously laboured for the propagation of the law he invaded with impartial ambition the Christian and Mahometan princes of Europe and Asia. From Angora to Amazia and Ezerum the northern regions of Anatolia were reduced to his obedience. He stripped of their hereditary possessions his brother Amir's of Ghermian and Carimania of Aydin and Salkan and after the conquest of Iconium the ancient kingdom of the Seldukians again revived in the Ottoman dynasty. Nor were the conquest of Bajazet less rapid or important in Europe. No sooner had he imposed a regular form of servitude on the Serbians and Bulgarians than he passed the Danube to seek new enemies and new subjects in the heart of Moldavia. Whatever yet adhered to the Greek empire in Thrace, Macedonia and Thessaly acknowledged a Turkish master an obsequious bishop led him through the gates of Thermopylae into Greece and we may observe as a singular fact that the widow of a Spanish chief who possessed the ancient seat of the Oracle of Delphi deserved his favour by the sacrifice of a beauteous daughter. The Turkish communications between Europe and Asia had been dangerous and doubtful till he stationed at Gallipoli a fleet of galleys to command the helispont and intercept the Latin suckers of Constantinople. While the monarch indulged his passions in a boundless range of injustice and cruelty he imposed on his soldiers the most rigid laws of modesty and abstinence and the harvest was peaceably reaped and sold within the precincts of his camp. Provoked by the loose and corrupt administration of justice he collected in a house the judges and lawyers of his dominions who expected that in a few moments the fire would be kindled to reduce them to ashes. His ministers trembled in silence but an Ethiopian buffoon presumed to insinuate the true cause of the evil and future banality was left without excuse by annexing an adequate salary to the office of Cardi. The humble title of Emyr was no longer suitable to the Ottoman greatness and Bajazet condescended to accept a Patent of Sultan from the Calives who served in Egypt under the yokes of the Mamluks. A last and frivolous homage that was yielded by force to opinion by the Turkish conquerors to the House of Abbas and the successors of the Arabian Prophet. The ambition of the Sultan was inflamed by the obligation of deserving this august title. He turned his arms against the Kingdom of Hungary the perpetual theatre of the Turkish victories and defeats. Sigismund the Hungarian king was the son and brother of the Empress of the West. His cause was that of Europe and the church and on the report of his danger the bravest knights of France and Germany were eager to march under his standard and that of the cross. In the Battle of Nicopolis Bajazet defeated a confederate army of a hundred thousand Christians who had proudly boasted that if the sky should fall they could uphold it on their lances. The far greater part was slain or driven into the Danube and Sigismund escaping to Constantinople by the river and the Black Sea returned after a long circuit to his exhausted kingdom. In the pride of victory Bajazet threatened that he would besiege Buddha that he would subdue the ancient countries of Germany and Italy and that he would feed his horse with a bushel of oats on the altar of Saint Peter at Rome. His progress was checked not by the miraculous interposition of the apostle not by a crusade of the Christian powers but by a long and painful fit of the gout. The disorders of the moral are sometimes corrected by those of the physical world and an acrimonious humour falling on a single fibre of one man may prevent or suspend the misery of nations. Such is the general idea of the Hungarian War but the disastrous adventure of the French has procured us the memorials which illustrate the victory and character of Bajazet. The Duke of Burgundy Sovereign of Flanders and Uncle of Charles VI yielded to the ardour of his son John Count of Nevers and the fearless youth was accompanied by four princes his cousins and those of the French monarch. Their inexperience was guided by the Sire de Coussi one of the best and oldest captains of Christendom. But the constable, admiral and marshal of France commanded an army which did not exceed the number of a thousand knights and squires. These splendid names were the source of presumption and the bane of discipline. So many might aspire to command that none were willing to obey. Their national spirit despised both their enemies and their allies. And in the persuasion that Bajazet would fly or must fall they began to compute how soon they should visit Constantinople and deliver the Holy Sepulchre. When their scouts announced the approach of the Turks the gay and thoughtless youths were at table already heated with wine. They instantly clasped their armour mounted their horses rose full speed to the vanguard and resented as an affront the advice of Sigismund which would have deprived them of the right and honour of the foremost attack. The battle of Nicopolis would not have been lost if the French would have obeyed the prudence of the Hungarians. But it might have been gloriously won had the Hungarians imitated the valor of the French. They dispersed the first line consisting of the troops of Asia forced a rampart of stakes which had been planted against the cavalry broke after a bloody conflict the Janissaries themselves and were at length overwhelmed by the numerous squadrons that issued from the woods and charged on all sides this handful of intrepid warriors. In the speed and secrecy of his march in the order and evolutions of the battle his enemies felt and admired the military talents of Bajaset. They accuse his cruelty in the use of victory. After reserving the Count of Nevers and four and twenty lords whose birth and riches were attested by his Latin interpreters the remainder of the French captives who had survived the slaughter of the day were led before his throne and as they refused to abdure their faith were successively beheaded in his presence. The Sultan was exasperated by the loss of his bravest Janissaries and if it be true that on the eve of the engagement the French had massacred their Turkish prisoners they might impute to themselves the consequences of a just retaliation. A knight whose life had been spared was permitted to return to Paris that he might relate the deplorable tale and solicit the ransom of the noble captives. In the meanwhile the Count of Nevers with the princes and barons of France were dragged along in the marches of the Turkish camp exposed as a grateful trophy to the Muslims of Europe and Asia and strictly confined at Bursa as often as Bajaset resided in his capital. The Sultan was pressed each day to expiate with their blood the blood of his martyrs but he had pronounced that they should live and either for mercy or destruction his word was irrevocable. He was assured of their value and importance by the return of the messenger and the gifts and intercessions of the kings of France and Cyprus. Lusignor presented him with a gold salt seller of curious workmanship and of the price of 10,000 ducats and Charles VI dispatched by the way of Hungary a cast of Norwegian hawks and six horse loads of scarlet cloth a fine linen of rime and of ours tapestry representing the battles of the great Alexander. After much delay the effect of distance rather than of art Bajaset agreed to accept a ransom of 200,000 ducats for the count of Nevers and the surviving princes and barons. The Marshal Boussico a famous warrior was of the number of the fortunate but the admiral of France had been slain in battle and the Constable with the side of Cussey died in the prison of Bursa. This heavy demand which was doubled by incidental costs fell chiefly on the Duke of Burgundy or rather on his Flemish subjects who were bound by the feudal laws to contribute for the knighthood and captivity of the eldest son of their lord. For the faithful discharge of the debt some merchants of Genoa gave security to the amount of five times the sum a lesson to those warlike times that commerce and credit are the links of the society of nations. It had been stipulated in the treaty that the French captives should swear never to bear arms against the person of their conqueror but the ungenerous restraint was abolished by Bajazet himself. I despise said he to the heir of Burgundy thy oaths and thy arms Thou art young and mayst be ambitious of effacing the disgrace or misfortune of thy first chivalry. Assemble thy powers proclaim thy design and be assured that Bajazet will rejoice to meet thee a second time in the field of battle. Before their departure they were indulged in the freedom and hospitality of the court of Borsa. The French princes admired the magnificence of the Ottoman whose hunting and hawking equipage was composed of 7,000 huntsmen and 7,000 falconers. In their presence and at his command the belly of one of his chamberlains was cut open on a complaint against him for drinking the goat's milk of a poor woman. The strangers were astonished by this act of justice but it was the justice of a sultan who disdains to balance the weight or evidence or to measure the degrees of guilt. After his enfranchisement from an oppressive guardian John Paleologus remained 36 years the helpless and as it should seem the careless spectator of the public ruin. Love or rather lust was his only vigorous passion and in the embraces of the wives and virgins of the city the Turkish slave forgot the dishonour of the emperor of the Romans Andronicus. His eldest son had deformed at Adrinopoul an intimate and guilty friendship with Sotsis the son of Amirath and the two youths conspired against the authority and lives of their parents. The presence of Amirath in Europe soon discovered and dissipated their rash councils and after depriving Sotsis of his sight the Ottoman threatened his vassal with the treatment of an accomplice and an enemy unless he inflicted a similar punishment on his own son. Paleologus trembled and obeyed and a cruel precaution involved in the same sentence the childhood and innocence of John the son of the criminal. But the operation was so mildly or so unskillfully performed that the one retained the sight of an eye and the other was inflicted only with the infirmity of squinting. Thus excluded from the succession the two princes were confined in the tower of Anima and the priority of Manuel the second son of the reigning monarch was rewarded with the gift of the imperial crown. But at the end of two years the turbulence of the Latins and the liberty of the Greeks produced a revolution and the two emperors were buried in the tower from whence the two prisoners were exalted to the throne. Another period of two years affolded Apaleologus and Manuel the means of escape. It was contrived by the magic or subtlety of a monk who was alternately named the angel or the devil. They fled to Scutari their adherents armed in their cause and the two Byzantine factions displayed the ambition and animosity with which Caesar and Pompey had disputed the empire of the world. The Roman world was now contracted to a corner of Thrace between the Propontis and the Black Sea about 50 miles in length and 30 in breadth a space of ground no more extensive than the lesser principalities of Germany or Italy if the remains of Constantinople had not still represented the wealth and popularness of a kingdom. To restore the public peace it was found necessary to divide this fragment of the empire and while Apaleologus and Manuel were left in possession of the capital almost all that lay without the walls was ceded to the blind princes who fixed their residences at Rodosto and Salibria. In the tranquil slumber of royalty the passions of John Apaleologus survived his reason and his strength. He deprived his favourite and heir of a blooming princess of Trebizond and while the feeble emperor laboured to consummate his nuptials Manuel with a hundred of the noblest Greeks was sent on of the peremptory summons to the Ottoman port. They served with honour in the walls of Bajazet but a planner fortifying Constantinople excited his jealousy. He threatened their lives. The new works were instantly demolished and we shall bestow a praise perhaps above the merit of Apaleologus if we impute this last humiliation as the cause of his death. The earliest intelligence of that event was communicated to Manuel who escaped with speed and secrecy from the palace of Bursa to the Byzantine throne. Bajazet affected a proud indifference at the loss of this valuable pledge and while he pursued his conquests in Europe and Asia he left the emperor to struggle with his blind cousin John of Salibria who in eight years of civil war asserted his right of primogeniture. At length the admission of victorious sultan pointed to the conquest of Constantinople but he listened to the advice of his vizier who represented that such an enterprise might unite the powers of Christendom in a second and more formidable crusade. His epistle to the emperor was conceived in these words By the divine clemency our invincible symmetry has reduced to our obedience almost all Asia with many enlarged countries in Europe accepting only the city of Constantinople for beyond the walls thou has nothing left design that city stipulate thy reward or tremble for thyself and thy unhappy people at the consequences of a rash refusal but his ambassadors were instructed to soften their tone and to propose a treaty which was subscribed with submission and gratitude. A truce of 10 years was purchased by an annual tribute of 30 000 crowns of gold. The Greeks deplored the public toleration of the law of Muhammad and Bajazet enjoyed the glory of establishing a Turkish cardy and founding a royal mosque in the metropolis of the eastern church. Yet this truce was soon violated by the restless sultan. In the cause of the prince of Celebria the lawful emperor an army of Ottomans again threatened Constantinople and the distress of Manuel implored the protection of the king of France. His playing-tive embassy obtained much pity and some relief and the conduct of the sucker was entrusted to the Marshal Boussicole whose religious chivalry was inflamed by the desire of avenging his captivity on the infidels. He sailed with four ships of war from Iga's mortar to the Hellespont forced the passage which was guarded by 17 Turkish galleys landed at Constantinople a supply of 600 men-at-arms and 1600 archers and reviewed them in the adjacent plain without condescending to number or array the multitude of Greeks. By his presence the blockade was raised both by sea and land. The flying squadrons of Bajazet were driven to a more respect and several castles in Europe and Asia were stormed by the emperor and the Marshal who fought with equal valour by each other's side. But the Ottomans soon returned with an increase of numbers and the intrepid Boussicole after a year's struggle resolved to evacuate a country which could no longer afford either pay or provisions for his soldiers. The Marshal offered to conduct Manuel to the French court where he might solicit in person a supply of men and money. And advised and advised in the meanwhile that to extinguish all domestic discord he should leave his blind competitor on the throne. The proposal was embraced. The Prince of Silibria was introduced to the capital and such was the public misery that the lot of the exile seemed more fortunate than that of the sovereign. Instead of applauding the success of his vassal the Turkish sultan claimed the city as his own and on the refusal of the emperor John Constantinople was more closely pressed by the calamities of war and famine. Against such an enemy prayers and resistance were alike unavailing and the savage would have devoured his prey if, in the fatal moment, he had not been overthrown by another savage stronger than himself. By the victory of Timor or Tamalain the fall of Constantinople was delayed about 50 years and this important though accidental service may justly introduce the life and character of the Mughal conqueror. End of Chapter 14 End of Chapter 14 Part 4 Stop End of Chapter 14 Part 4 Chapter 65 Part 1 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 6 This is a 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 Volume 6 Chapter 65 Part 1 Elevation of Timor or Tamalain to the Throne of Samaritand His conquests in Persia, Georgia, Tartary, Russia, India, Syria and Anatolia His Turkish War Defeat and Captivity of Bajazet Death of Timor Civil War of the Sons of Bajazet Restoration of the Turkish Monarchy by Mohammed I Siege of Constantinople by Amurath II The Conquest and Monarchy of the World was the first object of the ambition of Timor. To live in the memory and esteem of future ages was the second wish of his magnanimous spirit. All the civil and military transactions of his reign were diligently recorded in the journals of his secretaries. The authentic narrative was revised by the person's best informed of each particular transaction and it is believed in the empire and family of Timor that the monarch himself composed the commentaries of his life and the institutions of his government. But these cares were ineffectual for the preservation of his fame and these precious memorials in the Mogul or Persian language were concealed from the world or at least from the knowledge of Europe. The nations which he vanquished exercised a base and impotent revenge and ignorance has long repeated the tale of Calumni which has disfigured the birth and character, the person and even the name of Tamerlane. Yet his real merit would be enhanced rather than debased by the elevation of a peasant to the throne of Asia nor can lameness be a theme of reproach unless he had the weakness to blush at a natural or perhaps in honorable infirmity. In the eyes of the Moguls who held the indefusible secession of the House of Zhingus he was doubtless a rebel subject yet he sprang from the noble tribe of Berlas. His fifth ancestor, Kharashar Nevin had been the vizier of Zagatai in his new realm of Trans-Oxiana and in the ascent of some generations the branch of Timor is confounded at least by the females with the imperial stem. He was born 40 miles to the south of Samarakand in the village of Sepsar in the fruitful territory of Kash of which his fathers were the hereditary chiefs as well as of Atomen of 10,000 horse. His birth was cast on one of those periods of anarchy which announced the fall of the Asiatic dynasties and opened a new field to adventurous ambition. The cons of Zagatai were extinct. The Amirs aspired to independence and their domestic feuds can only be suspended by the conquest and tyranny of the cons of Kashkar who with an army of Getis or Kaumuks invaded the Trans-Oxian kingdom. From the 12th year of his age Timor had entered the field of action. In the 25th he stood forth as the deliverer of his country and the eyes and wishes of the people returned towards a hero who suffered in their cause. The chiefs of the law and of the army had pledged their salvation to support him with their lives and fortunes. But in the hour of danger they were silent and afraid and after waiting seven days on the hills of Samarakand he retreated to the desert with only 60 horsemen. The fugitives were overtaken by a thousand Getis whom he repulsed with incredible slaughter and his enemies were forced to exclaim Timor is a wonderful man. Fortune and the divine favor are with him. But in this bloody action his own followers were reduced to ten a number which was soon diminished by the desertions of three Charismians. He wandered in the desert with his wife seven companions and four horses and sixty-two days was he plunged in a lonesome dungeon from whence he escaped by his own courage and the remorse of the oppressor. After swimming the broad and rapid stream of the Zhihun or Axis he led during some months the life of a vagrant and outlaw on the borders of the adjacent states. But his fame shown brighter in adversity. He learned to distinguish the friends of his person the associates of his fortune and to apply the various characters of men for their advantage and above all for his own. On his return to his native country Timor was successively joined by the parties of his Confederates who anxiously sought him in the desert nor can I refuse to describe in his pathetic simplicity one of their fortunate encounters. He presented himself as a guide to three chiefs who were at the head of seventy horse. When their eyes fell upon me said Timor they were overwhelmed with joy and they alighted from their horses and they came and kneeled and they kissed my stirrup. I also came down from my horse and took each of them in my arms and I put my turban on the head of the first chief and my girdle rich in jewels and wrought with gold I bound on the loins of the second and the third I clothed in my own coat and they wept and I wept also and the hour of prayer was arrived and we prayed and remounted our horses and came to my dwelling and I collected my people and made a feast. His trusty bands were soon increased by the bravest of the tribes. He led them against a superior foe and after some vicissitudes of war the Getis were finally driven from the kingdom of Transoxiana. He had done much for his own glory but much remained to be done much art to be exerted and some blood to be spilled before he could teach his equals to obey him as their master. The birth and power of Amir Hussein compelled him to accept a vicious and unworthy colleague whose sister was the best beloved of his wives. Their union was short and jealous but the policy of Timor in their frequent quarrels exposed his rival to the reproach of injustice and perfidy and after a final defeat Hussein was slain by some sagacious friends who presumed for the last time to obey the commands of their lord. At the age of 34 and in a general diet or choral tie he was invested with imperial command but he affected to revere the house of Jingus and while the Amir Timor reigned over Zagatai and the east a nominal Khan served as a private officer in the armies of his servant. A fertile kingdom 500 miles in length and in breadth might have satisfied the ambition of a subject but Timor aspired to the dominion of the world and before his death the crown of Zagatai was one of the 27 crowns which he had placed on his head without expiating on the victories of 35 campaigns without describing the lines of March which he repeatedly traced over the continent of Asia. I shall briefly represent his conquests in 1. Persia 2. Tartary and 3. India and from thence proceeding to the more interesting narrative of his Ottoman war. 1. For every war a motive of safety or revenge of honour or zeal of right or convenience may be readily found in the jurisprudence of conquerors. No sooner had Timor reunited to the patrimony of Zagatai the dependent countries of Charizmi in Kandahar than he turned his eyes towards the kingdoms of Iran or Persia. From the Axis to the Tigris that extensive country was left without a lawful sovereign after the death of Abu Sa'id the last of the descendants of the great Holika'u. Peace and justice had been banished from the land above 40 years. And the Mogul invader might seem to listen to the cries of an oppressed people. Their petty tyrants might have opposed him with confederate arms. They separately stood and successively fell. And the difference of their fate was only marked by the prostitute of submission or the obscenity of resistance. Ibrahim, prince of Shirwan or Albania kissed the footstool of the imperial throne. His peace offerings of silks, horses, and jewels were composed according to the Tatar fashion. Each article of nine pieces but a critical spectator observed that there were only eight slaves. I myself in the ninth, replied Ibrahim, who was prepared for the remark and his flattery was rewarded by the smile of Tibor. Shah Mansur, prince of Fars or the proper Persia was one of the least powerful but most dangerous of his enemies. In a battle under the walls of Shiraz he broke with three or four thousand soldiers the koole or main body of thirty thousand horse where the emperor fought in person. No more than fourteen or fifteen guards remained near the standard of Tibor. He stood firm as a rock and received on his helmet two weighty strokes of a scimitar. The Moguls rallied and the head of Mansur was thrown at his feet and he declared his esteem of the valour of a foe by extirpating all the males of so intrepid a race. From Shiraz his troops advanced to the Persian Gulf and the richness and weakness of Ormuz were displayed in an annual tribute of six hundred thousand dinars of gold. Baghdad was no longer the city of peace the seat of the Caliphs but the noblest conquest of Hulakal could not be overlooked by his ambitious successor. The whole course of the Tigris and Euphrates from the mouth to the sources of those rivers was reduced to his obedience. He entered Edessa and the Turkmens of the black sheep were chastised for the sacrilegious pillage of a caravan of Mecca. In the mountains of Georgia the native Christians still braved the law and the sword of Mohammed. By three expeditions he obtained the merit of the Ghazi or Holy War and the Prince of Teflis became his proselyte and friend. 2. A just retaliation might be urged for the invasion of Turkestan or the eastern Tartary. The dignity of Timur could not endure the impunity of the Ghettis. He passed the Sihun, subdued the kingdom of Kashgar and marched seven times into the heart of their country. His most distant camp was two months journey or four hundred and eighty leagues to the northeast of Samarakhand and his emirs who traversed the river Ertish engraved in the forests of Siberia a rude memorial of their exploits. The conquest of Kipzak or the western Tartary was founded on the double motive of aiding the distressed and chastising the ungrateful. Koktamish, a fugitive prince, was entertained and protected in his court. The ambassadors of Aruz Khan were dismissed with a haughty denial and followed on the same day by the armies of Zagatai and their success established Koktamish in the Mogul empire of the north. But after a reign of ten years the new Khan forgot the merits and the strength of his benefactor the base usurper as he deemed him of the sacred rites of the house of Zhingus. Through the gates of Derbent he entered Persia at the head of ninety thousand horse with the innumerable forces of Kipzak, Bulgaria, Krakasia and Russia. He passed the Sahun, burnt the palaces of Timor and compelled him amidst the winter snows to contend for Samarakant and his life. After a mild expostulation and a glorious victory the emperor resolved on revenge and by the east and the west of the Caspian and the Volga he twice invaded Kipzak with such mighty powers that thirteen miles were measured with his right to his left wing. In a march of five months they rarely beheld the footsteps of man and their daily subsistence was often trusted to the fortune of the chase. At length the armies encountered each other but the treachery of the standard bearer who, in the heat of action, reversed the imperial standard of Kipzak determined the victory of the Zagatais and Toktomish, I speak the language of the institutions, gave the tribe of Toshi to the wind of desolation. He fled to the Christian duke of Lithuania, again returned to the banks of the Volga and after fifteen battles with the domestic rival at last perished in the wilds of Siberia. The pursuit of a flying enemy carried Timor into the tributary provinces of Russia. A duke of the reigning family was made prisoner amidst the ruins of his capital and, yellets, by the pride and ignorance of the Orientals might easily be confounded with the genuine metropolis of the nation. Moscow trembled at the approach of the Tartar and the resistance would have been feeble since the hopes of the Russians were placed in a miraculous image of the Virgin to whose protection they ascribed the casual and voluntary retreat of the conqueror. Ambition and prudence recalled him to the south. The desolate country was exhausted and the mogul soldiers were enriched with an immense boils of precious furs of linen of Antioch and of ingots of gold and silver. On the banks of the Don, or Teneis, he received a humble deputation from the councils and merchants of Egypt, Venice, Genoa, Catalonia, and Biscay, who occupied the commerce and city of Tana, or Ezov, at the mouth of the river. They offered their gifts, admired his magnificence, and trusted his royal word. But the peaceful visit of an emir who explored the state of the magazines and harbor was speedily followed by the destructive presence of the Tartars. The city was reduced to ashes, the Muslims were pillaged and dismissed, but all the Christians who had not fled to their ships were condemned either to death or slavery. Revenge prompted him to burn the cities of Sarai and Astrochan, monuments of rising civilization, and his vanity proclaimed that he had penetrated to the region a perpetual daylight which authorized his Mohammedan doctors the dispense with the obligation of evening prayer. Free. When Timor first proposed to his princes and emirs the invasion of India, or Hindustan, he was answered by a murmur of discontent. The rivers, and the mountains, and deserts, and the soldiers clad in armor, and the elephants, destroyers of men. But the displeasure of the emperor was more dreadful than all those terrors, and his superior reason was convinced that an enterprise of such tremendous aspect was safe and easy in the execution. He was informed by his spies of the weakness and anarchy of Hindustan, the subas of the provinces had erected the standard of rebellion, and the perpetual infancy of Sultan Mahmud was despised even in the harem of Delhi. The Moghul army moved in three great divisions, and Timor observes with pleasure that the 92 squadrons of a thousand horse most fortunately corresponded to the 92 names or epithets of the Prophet Muhammad. Between the Jijun and the Indus, they crossed one of the ridges of the mountains which are styled by the Arabian geographers, the stony girdles of the earth. The Highland robbers were subdued or extirpated, but great numbers of men and horses perished in the snow. The emperor himself was let down, a precipice on a portable scaffold. The ropes were 150 cubits in length. And before he could reach the bottom, this dangerous operation was five times repeated. Timor crossed the Indus at the ordinary passage of Atak, and successively traversed in the footsteps of Alexander, the Punjab, or five rivers, that fall into the master stream. From Atak to Delhi, the high road measures no more than 600 miles, but the two conquerors deviated to the southeast, and the motive of Timor was to join his grandson who had achieved by his command the conquest of Multan. On the eastern bank of the Haifassis, on the edge of the desert, the Macedonian hero halted and wept. The mogul entered the desert, reduced the fortress of Batnir, and stood in arms before the gates of Delhi, a great and flourishing city which had subsisted three centuries under the dominion of the Muhammadan kings. The siege, more especially of the castle, might have been a work of time, but he tempted, by the appearance of weakness, the Sultan Mahmud, and his vizier to descend into the plain with 10,000 Kuraessers, 40,000 of his footguards, and 120 elephants, whose tusks are said to have been armed with sharp and poison daggers. Against these monsters, or rather against the imagination of his troops, he condescended to use some extraordinary precautions of fire and ditch, of iron spikes, and a rampart of bucklers. But the event taught the moguls to smile at their own fears, and as soon as these unwieldy animals were routed, the inferior species, the men of India, disappeared from the field. Timur made his triumphal entry into the capital of Hindustan, and admired with a view to imitate the architecture of the stately mosque, but the order or license of a general pillage and massacre polluted the festival of his victory. He resolved to purify his soldiers in the blood of the idolaters, or Gintus, who still surpass in the proportion of 10 to 1 the number of the Muslims. In this pious design he advanced 100 miles to the northeast of Delhi, past the Ganges, fought several battles by land and water, and penetrated to the famous rock of Kupile, the statue of the cow that seems to discharge the mighty river, whose source is far distant among the mountains of Tibet. His return was along the skirts of the northern hills, nor could this rapid campaign of one year justify the strange foresight of his amirs, that their children in a warm climate would degenerate into a race of Hindus. It was on the banks of the Ganges that Timur was informed by his speedy messengers of the disturbances which had arisen on the confines of Georgia and Anatolia, of the revolt of the Christians, and the ambitious designs of the Sultan Bajazet. His vigorous mind and body was not impaired by 63 years and innumerable fatigues, and after enjoying some tranquil months in the palace of Samarakhand, he proclaimed a new expedition of seven years into the western countries of Asia. To the soldiers who had served in the Indian War, he granted the choice of remaining at home or following their prince. But the troops of all the provinces and kingdoms of Persia were commanded to assemble at Ipsfahan and await the arrival of the imperial standard. It was first directed against the Christians of Georgia, who were strong only in their rocks, their castles, and the winter season, but these obstacles were overcome by the zeal and perseverance of Timur. The rebels submitted to the tribute of the Koran, and if both religions boasted of their martyrs, that name is more justly due to the Christian prisoners who were offered the choice of abjuration or death. On his descent from the hills, the emperor gave audience to the first ambassadors of Bajazet and opened the hostile correspondence of complaints and menaces, which fermented two years before the final explosion. Between the two jealous and haughty neighbors, the motives of quarrel will seldom be wanting. The mogul and Ottoman conquests now touched each other in the neighborhood of Erzurum and the Euphrates, nor had the doubtful limit been ascertained by time and treaty. Each of these ambitious monarchs might accuse his rival of violating his territory, of threatening his vassals, and protecting his rebels, and in the name of rebels, each understood the fugitive princes, whose kingdoms he had usurped, and whose life and liberty he implacably pursued. The resemblance of character was still more dangerous than the opposition of interest, and in their victorious career Timur was impatient of an equal, and Bajazet was ignorant of a superior. The first epistle of the mogul emperor must have provoked instead of reconciling the Turkish sultan, whose family and nation he affected to despise. Does Thal not know that the greatest part of Asia is subject to our arms and our laws, that our invincible forces extend from one sea to the other, and that the potentates of the earth form a line before our gate, and that we have compelled fortune herself to watch over the prosperity of our empire? What is the foundation of thy insolence and folly? Thou has fought some battles in the woods of Anatolia, and contemptible trophies. Thou hast obtained some victories over the Christians of Europe. Thy sword was blessed by the apostle of God, and thy obedience to the precept of the Quran, in waging war against the infidels, is the sole consideration that prevents us from destroying thy country, the frontier and bulwark of the Muslim world. Be wise in time, reflect, repent, and avert the thunder of our vengeance, which is yet suspended over thy head. Thou art no more than a pismire. Why wilt thou seek to provoke the elephants? Alas, they will trample thee under their feet. In his replies, Bajazet poured forth the indignation of a soul which was deeply stung by such unusual contempt. After retorting the basest reproaches of the thief and rebel of the desert, the Ottoman recapitulates his boasted victories in Iran, Tehran, and the Indies, and labors to prove that Timur had never triumphed unless by his own perfidy in the vices of his foes. Thy armies are innumerable, be they so, but what are the arrows of the flying tartar against the scimitars and battle-axes of my firm and invincible Janissaries? I will guard the princes, who have implored my protection, seek them in my tents. The cities of Arzengan and Ezeroam are mine, and unless the tribute be duly paid, I will demand the arrears under the walls of Taras and Sultiana. The ungovernable rage of the sultan at length betrayed him to an insult of a more domestic kind. If I fly from thy arms, said he, may my wives be thrice divorced from my bed, but if thou hast not the courage to meet me in the field, mayest thou again receive thy wives after they have thrice endured the embraces of a stranger. Any violation by word or deed of the secrecy of the harem is an unpardonable offense among the Turkish nations, and the political quarrel of the two monarchs was embittered by private and personal resentment. Yet in his first expedition Timur was satisfied with the siege and destruction of Suvas or Sebasti, a strong city on the borders of Anatolia, and he revenged the indiscretion of the Ottoman on a garrison of 4,000 Armenians who were buried alive for the brave and faithful discharge of their duty. As a Muslman he seemed to respect the pious occupation of Bajazet, who was still engaged in a blockade of Constantinople, and after the salutary lesson the mogul conqueror checked his pursuit and turned aside to the invasion of Syria and Egypt. In these transactions the Ottoman prince, by the Orientals and even by Timur, is styled the Kaysar of Rome, the Caesar of the Romans, a title which, by a small anticipation, might be given to a monarch who possessed the provinces and threatened the city of the successors of Constantine.