The Project Gutenberg eBook of Destruction Of The Greek Empire, by Edwin Pears

288 Ducas, p. 121, says, to pass τὸν Μεγαδημήτριον τὸν ἀκρόπολιν. The tower stood near Seraglio Point; Dr. Mordtmann places it on the Golden Horn side, while Paspates, in Τὰ Βυζαντινὰ Ἀνάκτορα, p. 37, thought he had identified the foundations just beyond the bridge crossing the railway line to the Imperial Treasury. To have been a conspicuous landmark for ships steering from the Marmora to the harbour, as it is represented to have been, the church must have been very lofty if in the position adopted by Dr. Mordtmann.

289 Pusculus, 385, Book iv.

290 Barbaro says, ‘Quando queste quatro naves fo per mezo la zitade de Constantinopli subito el vento i bonazò’ (p. 23).

291 Pusculus iv. v. 415: ‘Deserit illic ventus eas; cecidere sinus sub moenibus arcis.’

293 I doubt whether Greek fire was so much used as it is usually asserted to have been. It was always dangerous to those who used it. When employed by the Byzantine ships it caused great damage and still greater alarm. I agree with Krause that it was very rarely employed. See Die Byzantiner des Mittelalters, by J. H. Krause; Halle, 1869.

294 Pusculus, iv. 340.

296 Gyllius mentions this foreshore as existing in his time, gives its width, and vividly describes how it was utilised and increased by the inhabitants of Galata (book iv. ch. 10). In digging for the foundations of the British post office in Galata in 1895, on a site that is now upwards of a hundred yards from the water, remains of an old wooden jetty were discovered. Indeed, I think it highly probable that in 1453 the whole of what is now the main street of Galata from the bridge to Tophana was under water.

299 Barbaro, p. 24, and Phrantzes.

300 According to Ducas, Mahomet himself inflicted the blows: an absurd statement.

301 Ducas, 121; Leonard, Phrantzes, and Nicolo Barbaro.

302 Hunyadi, according to Phrantzes (p. 327), asked that Silivria or Mesembria, on the bay of Bourgas, should be given to him as the price of his aid, and Phrantzes declares that the emperor ceded the latter place, he himself having written the Golden Bull making the cession. He adds also that the king of Catalonia stipulated for Lemnos as the price of his aid. But no aid came from either.

303 Barbaro, under April 21; Phrantzes, 246. The tower is called by Leonard Bactatanea. He afterwards writes of the breach near it as being in the Murus Bacchatureus. See, as to its situation, Professor van Millingen’s Byzantine Constantinople, pp. 86, 87.

304 As the only church in the neighbourhood of the place defended by Justiniani was that of St Kyriakè near the Pempton, the information is valuable as helping to fix the locality where the great gun was stationed. The Moscovite, ch. vii.

305 The Moscovite, ch. vii., in Dethier’s Siege; Barbaro, p. 27; Crit.

307 Barbaro, p. 27. The account of the fight given by Pusculus is very full and spirited. See note in Appendix as to the question where the naval fight took place.

308 In 1203 the Crusaders and Venetians had forced the boom tower on the Galata side and loosed the chain; but it was then outside the city walls. In the time of Cantacuzenus, Galata had been enlarged so that the end of the chain was quite safe unless Galata were taken. The walls terminated, as may still be seen by the remaining towers, near Tophana.

309 Leonard, and Sauli’s Colonia dei Genovesi in Galata, p. 158. Other similar instances are cited by contemporaries, but it is not necessary to suppose that Mahomet had ever heard either of the fable of Caesar’s attack upon Antony and Cleopatra or of a like feat performed by Xerxes. The Avars had made a crossing similar to that contemplated by Mahomet. The transport of the imperial fleet into Lake Ascanius in order to take possession of Nicaea in 1097 might possibly have been known to him.

310 Λοιπὸν ὁ ἀμερᾶς τὰς τριήρεις φέρας ἐν μίᾳ νυκτί, ἐν τῷ λιμένι τῷ πρωῒ ηὑρέθησαν: Phrantzes, 251.

311 Dethier places them on a small plateau now occupied by the English Memorial Church. [Note on Pusculus, book iv. line 482. Professor van Millingen (p. 231), in discussing the question of the position of St. Theodore, suggests that the sultan’s battery stood nearer the Bosporus than the present Italian Hospital. This suggestion is not necessarily at variance with the position indicated by Dethier.]

312 Philelphus, book ii. line 976: ‘Genuae tunc clara juventus obstupuit.’ Ducas, however, states that the Genoese claimed to have known of the proposed transport and to have allowed it out of friendship to Mahomet.

313 ‘Et hic quidem in superiori parte per montem navigia transportavit ... in litore stabant milites parati propulsare hostes bombardis, si accederent prohibituri deducere naves.’ Chalcondylas, book viii.

314 Crit. says 68; Barbaro, 72; Tetaldi, between 70 and 80; Chalcondylas, 70; and Ducas, 80; Heirullah says there were only 20; the Janissary Michael, 30; the Anon. Expugnatio, edited by Thyselius, sect. 12, says not less than 80.

315 ‘Lacertus’ is the word Leonard ingeniously uses for the Greek πῆχυς.

316 Crit. book iv. ch. 42. It is difficult to determine the size of the boat selected for this overland transit. Barbaro says, ‘le qual fusti si iera de banchi quindexe fina banchi vinti et anchi vintido’ (page 28). This would agree fairly well with the statement of Chalcondylas, that some had thirty and some fifty oars. Mr. Cecil Torr calculates that a thirty-oared ship would be about seventy feet long, a statement which appears probable (Ancient Ships, p. 21). The mediaeval galleys and other large vessels propelled by oars differed essentially from those of the sixteenth century, which were worked with long oars. See note on p. 234. I am myself not entirely satisfied that among the boats were not biremes and possibly triremes in the sense of boats which had two or three tiers of oars, one above the other. Fashions change slowly in Turkey, and I have seen a bireme with two such tiers of oars on the Bosporus. No writer mentions the length of the vessels which were carried across Pera Hill. A large modern fishing caique in the Marmora, probably not differing much in shape from the fustae then transported, and containing twelve oars, measures about fifty feet long. When the boats are longer, two men take one oar, but this is very unusual. Leonard speaks of the seventy vessels as biremes. Barbaro calls them fustae. The former was probably the best Latin word to signify the new form of vessel. Many of the ships were large, though it may be taken as certain that none were of the length of the two galleys recently raised in lake Nemi, near Rome, which belonged to Caligula, each of which is 225 feet long and 60 feet beam.

317 See note in Appendix on transport of Mahomet’s ships.

319 Phrantzes, p. 327.

321 Barbaro says that the meeting was in St. Mary’s; but Pusculus (iv. 578) says, in St. Peter Claviger, which Dethier places near St. Sophia.

323 Barbaro, under April 24 and 25.

324 Pusculus, lines 585 et seq.

325 Pusculus, iv. 610.

327 The account of this attempt to destroy the Turkish ships in the harbour is best given by Barbaro, but Phrantzes and Pusculus are in substantial agreement with him.

328 Phrantzes (p. 248) says 260 Turkish prisoners were executed.

329 The Moscovite, ch. vii.

331 Dr. Mordtmann places the bridge between Cumberhana and Defterdar Scala.

332 Ducas gives the above dimensions. Assuming the width from centre of each barrel, including a space between them, to be four feet, this would give the length of the bridge as 2,000 feet, which is about the width of the Horn at the place mentioned. Phrantzes gives its length at a hundred fathoms and the breadth fifty fathoms. These dimensions are clearly wrong if applied to the bridge, since the length falls far short of the width of the gulf. Leonard says it was thirty stadia long. Here, as elsewhere, I suspect that he uses stadium for some measure about one ninth of a furlong in length. If this conjecture is right, his estimate of the length of the bridge is about 2,000 feet.

334 Barbaro, 36; Phrantzes, 250.

335 The Moscovite, xv. While there are useful hints in this anonymous author, he is generally untrustworthy. This fight, for example, is represented as being outside the walls. It is incredible that the Greeks should have made a sortie at this period of the siege. As an illustration of the untrustworthy character of the writer, it may be noted that the number of Turks killed during the siege totals up to 130,000!

336 Leonard, the Vallum and the Antemurale.

337 Phrantzes, p. 244.

338 ‘Bastion’ is the word used for a wooden tower or castle by Barbaro and by the translator of the Moscovite. Chalcondylas calls it helepolis, distinguishing it from the cannon which he names teleboles. Ducas speaks of cannon usually by the word χωνείαν, sometimes as τὰς πετροβολιμαίους χώνας or σκευαὶ πετροβόλοι or simply as τὸ σκεῦος; Phrantzes employs the word helepolis for a wooden turret (pp. 237, 244). The latter word is used by Critobulus for a cannon. It was an epithet applied to Helen, ‘the Taker of Cities.’ In the Bonn edition of Phrantzes it is also employed, both in the text and the Latin translation, for cannon; but a reference to the readings of the Paris MS. suggests that it is an error. Phrantzes’s words for cannons are teleboles and petroboles.

339 The ‘Chastel de bois’ was ‘si haut, si grand et si fort qu’il maistrisoit le mur et dominait par-dessus’ (Tetaldi, p. 25).

340 Barbaro states that it occupied a place called the ‘Cresca,’ possibly a copyist’s error for Cressus (= Chariseus), the name which I believe he gave indifferently with San Romano to the Pempton. Elsewhere he uses Cresca for the Golden Gate (e.g. p. 18). Possibly, however, he is referring to another turret, which was at the Golden Gate. Barbaro’s knowledge of places and names is not accurate. If Barbaro’s ‘bastion’ is the ‘helepole’ of which Phrantzes speaks (p. 245), then the three writers agree that the principal turret was at the Romanus Gate.

341 The Moscovite, 1087; Phrantzes, 247.

342 Leonard, p. 93: ‘Mauritius Cataneus ... inter portam Pighi, id est fontis, usque ad Auream contra ligneum castrum, pellibus boum contectum, oppositum accurate decertat.’ Cardinal Isidore, in the Lamentatio, says, p. 676: ‘Admoventur urbi ligneae turres.’

343 Barbaro, under dates of May 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25.

344 As to the question whether there was water in the foss, see Professor Van Millingen’s Byz. Constantinople, pp. 57–8.

345 Crit. xxxi. Ἀλλὰ τοῦτο μὲν ὕστερον περιττὸν ἔδοξε, καὶ ματαία δαπάνη, τῶν μηχανῶν τὸ πᾶν κατεργασαμένων.

346 The return, as mentioned, was on May 23, but is given by Barbaro under the 3rd. This is one of the passages which show that his diary was revised and added to after the siege.

347 Crit. xlvi.; Pusculus, iv. 889, says:

Candida completo cum Phoebe surgeret orbe
Moesta prodit, fati miseri cladisque propinquae
Nuntia; nam tristis faciem velamine nubis
Tecta atrae, mediaque latens plus parte sereno
Incedit coelo.

Barbaro seems to describe an eclipse of the moon on May 22. The elder Dr. Mordtmann states that there was no full moon and consequently no eclipse on the 22nd, but that there was on the 24th. Dethier’s note on The Moscovite, p. 1100. Phrantzes, p. 264, speaks of a light flashing from the sky settling over the city, and remaining during the whole night. See note, post p. 316.

348 Constantine was a widower, his wife, Catherine, having died in 1442, a year after her marriage. Phrantzes, 195–8.

349 The same remark applies to The Moscovite generally. There are so many manifest fringes to what ought to have been the correct narrative of an eye-witness that it is impossible to distinguish truth from falsehood.

350 Barbaro, under May 20.

351 Leonard, Opere, p. 94.

354 Barbaro, under May 28.

355 Ep. Ang. Johannis Zacchariae Potestatis Perae, Sec. 2, edition revised by Edward Hopf and Dethier.

356 Leonard, p. 94, and also Italian version given by Dethier, p. 644.

357 Tetaldi, pp. 32–35.

359 See also the Moscovite, xx.

361 Barbaro, Pusculus, and Leonard agree with Critobulus in their description of the stockade.

363 Ibid. 326. M. Mijatovich, in his pleasant and valuable Constantine, last Emperor of the Greeks, states that Mahomet received an ambassador from Ladislaus on May 26 (p. 198); but I do not know on what authority.

365 M. Mitjatovich’s suggestion that the negotiations had probably emanated from the wily cardinal who had been the evil spirit of Ladislaus, or possibly from the crafty, but unpractical, mind of George Brancovich, appears plausible.

366 Phrantzes, 326; Ducas, xxxviii.

368 Tetaldi says: ‘Se l’armée de Venise que menoit et conduisoit Messire Jean le Rendoul [Loredano] fut arrivé à Constantinople ung seul jour avant que cette cité fust prinse, certes il n’y avoit aucun doute qu’ils eussent fort secouru et fussent venus bien à point’ (p. 30).

369 ‘Per el campo del Turco in questo zorno se fexe asai feste, de soni, e de altra condition de alegreze, e questo perche i sentiva che tosto i volea dare la bataia zeneral’ (p. 48, under May 24).

371 Leonard, p. 95; Phrantzes, 263; Crit. xlvi.

373 The accounts of this light (or darkness), which alarmed both sides, are somewhat conflicting. Perhaps here also Critobulus is the safest guide. In chapter xlvi. he mentions the religious procession already described, where the statue of the Virgin falls, and says it was ‘three or four days before the attack.’ Immediately after came torrential rains with vivid flashes of lightning. Then, ‘the next day,’ there was a thick fog lasting till evening. Barbaro speaks of a darkness, due, judging from his description, to an eclipse of the moon, lasting from the first to the sixth hour after sunset, as being on the 22nd. This alarmed the Greeks, he says, because of an ancient prophecy which declared that Constantinople should not be lost until the moon should give a sign in the heavens. Phrantzes (page 264) says: φῶς ἀστράπτον καταβαῖνον ἐξ οὐρανῶν καὶ δι’ ὅλης τῆς νυκτὸς ἄνωθεν τῆς πόλεως ἑστὸς διέσκεπεν αὐτήν. Possibly both Phrantzes and Barbaro have the same atmospheric night effects in view: that is, that there were frequent flashes of lightning during the night so long as the eclipse lasted. The statement of Pusculus, who was in the city at the time, has already been quoted. See p. 297, ante. The account of Critobulus appears clear, but it does not eliminate the miraculous, for he declares that many persons, both Romans and foreigners, declared that they had seen the Divinity hiding Himself in the clouds.

374 Ducas also mentions the attempt recorded by Chalcondylas, but without mentioning the name of Ismail. Ducas thus mentions two negotiations for peace, the first (if it ever existed) being towards the end of April and the second nearly a month after.

375 The Turkish historian Sad-ud-din, (p. 20) represents the emperor as offering to surrender everything except Constantinople; to which Mahomet’s reply was, ‘Either the city, the sword, or El-Islam.’

377 Leonard, Phrantzes, and Tetaldi all speak of him as friendly to the Christians. He was, however, disliked by Mahomet, because he had persuaded Murad to send his son to Magnesia. Tetaldi says that the Christians in the Turkish army shot letters into the city to let the besieged know all that went on in the council.

378 According to Leonard, the sultan ordered Zagan to fix a day for a general assault.

379 Phrantzes, 623–8, and also Leonard.

380 The narrative of Phrantzes relating the decision of the meeting of the Turkish council concludes by stating that this was on the 27th—that is, Sunday (p. 269). It may have been, but it is difficult to believe that the council meeting, the sending of Zagan to learn the opinion of the soldiers, his return and the decision, together with the subsequent proclamation, were all crowded into one day. Barbaro gives the proclamation as being made on Monday the 28th. Leonard says that, as a result of the meeting, a proclamation was issued for the attack to be on Tuesday and for the three preceding days to be devoted to prayer and one of them to fasting. If he is correct, the council could not have been on the 27th. Tetaldi states that the council lasted during four days. The statement appears possible, and perhaps gives the explanation of the apparent discrepancies in the narratives.

381 Leonard, 96, Phrant. 269; Barbaro adds that the Turks believed that on the morrow they would have so many Christians in hand that two slaves could be bought for a ducat: such riches that everything would be of gold, and they could have enough hair from the heads of Christian priests to make ropes with which to tie up their dogs.

382 The Moscovite, xxii. This first wound is only mentioned by the Moscovite.

385 Barbaro. Ducas says, from St. Eugenius to Hodegetria and as far as Vlanga (p. 282–3), which is substantially the same position as that given by Critobulus.

386 Zorso Dolfin, p. 78.

387 Sad-ud-din, p. 16. Translation by E. J. W. Gibb.

388 τούφακας; in modern Greek the name for sporting guns is τουφέκια. The Turks call them Toufeng. Ducas uses the word μολυβδοβόλοι.

389 Crit. xlvii. to lii.

390 According to Critobulus, the meeting of the Council was on the 27th.

391 Phrantzes, 269–70. Was the speech as recorded by Critobulus ever delivered? The answer I am disposed to give is that a speech was delivered which was substantially that reported by Phrantzes and Critobulus. The fashion followed by the Byzantine writers, and their desire to imitate classical models, by putting all speeches in the first person, made it necessary to invent a speech if the substance of what was said were known. Critobulus, writing some years after the capture and having had many opportunities of meeting with the Turkish leaders, was in a position to learn what was said and done by them, and hence his report, wherever it can be tested, almost invariably proves trustworthy.

392 Barbaro, May 28.

394 Phrantzes, 271–8; Leonard, 97.

395 Phrantzes, 279; The Moscovite, p. 1113. The ceremony is also mentioned in the Georgian Chronicle.

396 Libro d’Andrea Cambini Florentino della Origine de Turchi et imperio delli Ottomanni. Edition of 1529, p. 25.

397 Phrantzes, p. 280. The closing of the gates behind the soldiers is mentioned also by other writers.

398 The Caligaria Gate was the present Egri Capou. For a description of Caligaria and the neighbouring palace of Blachern see Professor van Millingen’s Byzantine Constantinople, p. 128. Caligaria was the name of a district which was in the corner made by the wall running at right angles to the foss, where it terminates on the north just beyond Tekfour Serai, and that which leads down the steep slope to the Golden Horn.

399 Phrantzes, p. 280.

400 The question when the general attack began is very much one of appreciation. According to Ducas, Mahomet commenced on the Sunday evening to make a general attack and during the night the besieged were not permitted to sleep but were harassed all night and, though in a less active manner, until between four and five of the afternoon of Monday. Phrantzes declares the capture to have been made on the third day of the attack and would thus make it begin on Sunday, but his narrative shows that the general attack began after midnight of the 28–9th. Barbaro’s statement substantially agrees with that of Phrantzes and is that during the whole of the 27th the cannons were discharging their stone balls: tuto el zorno non feze mai altro che bombardar in le puovere mure; but on p. 51 he says that Mahomet came before the walls to begin the general attack at three hours before day on the 29th. Critobulus makes the general attack begin on the afternoon of the 28th, when the sultan raised his great standard (Crit. lii. and lv.). Karl Müller, in his excellent notes to Critobulus, justly remarks that as Barbaro and Phrantzes were in the city their evidence ought to be preferred to that of Critobulus. They both represent the final assault as beginning very early in the morning of the 29th. The statements are reconcilable by supposing that the dispositions for a general attack began on the Sunday, but that the actual general assault did not take place until the Tuesday morning. Sad-ud-din says, on the authority of two Turkish contemporaries, that ‘the great victory was on Tuesday, the fifty-first day from the commencement of the war’ (p. 34).