Volume 6 Part 31 (2/2)
[Footnote 83: From the Turco-Graecia of Crusius, &c. Sponda.n.u.s (A.D.
1453, No. 21, 1458, No. 16) describes the slavery and domestic quarrels of the Greek church. The patriarch who succeeded Gennadius threw himself in despair into a well.]
[Footnote 84: Cantemir (p. 101--105) insists on the unanimous consent of the Turkish historians, ancient as well as modern, and argues, that they would not have violated the truth to diminish their national glory, since it is esteemed more honorable to take a city by force than by composition. But, 1. I doubt this consent, since he quotes no particular historian, and the Turkish Annals of Leunclavius affirm, without exception, that Mahomet took Constantinople _per vim_, (p. 329.) 2 The same argument may be turned in favor of the Greeks of the times, who would not have forgotten this honorable and salutary treaty. Voltaire, as usual, prefers the Turks to the Christians.]
The remaining fragments of the Greek kingdom in Europe and Asia I shall abandon to the Turkish arms; but the final extinction of the two last dynasties [85] which have reigned in Constantinople should terminate the decline and fall of the Roman empire in the East. The despots of the Morea, Demetrius and Thomas, [86] the two surviving brothers of the name of Palaeologus, were astonished by the death of the emperor Constantine, and the ruin of the monarchy. Hopeless of defence, they prepared, with the n.o.ble Greeks who adhered to their fortune, to seek a refuge in Italy, beyond the reach of the Ottoman thunder. Their first apprehensions were dispelled by the victorious sultan, who contented himself with a tribute of twelve thousand ducats; and while his ambition explored the continent and the islands, in search of prey, he indulged the Morea in a respite of seven years. But this respite was a period of grief, discord, and misery. The _hexamilion_, the rampart of the Isthmus, so often raised and so often subverted, could not long be defended by three hundred Italian archers: the keys of Corinth were seized by the Turks: they returned from their summer excursions with a train of captives and spoil; and the complaints of the injured Greeks were heard with indifference and disdain. The Albanians, a vagrant tribe of shepherds and robbers, filled the peninsula with rapine and murder: the two despots implored the dangerous and humiliating aid of a neighboring bashaw; and when he had quelled the revolt, his lessons inculcated the rule of their future conduct. Neither the ties of blood, nor the oaths which they repeatedly pledged in the communion and before the altar, nor the stronger pressure of necessity, could reconcile or suspend their domestic quarrels. They ravaged each other's patrimony with fire and sword: the alms and succors of the West were consumed in civil hostility; and their power was only exerted in savage and arbitrary executions. The distress and revenge of the weaker rival invoked their supreme lord; and, in the season of maturity and revenge, Mahomet declared himself the friend of Demetrius, and marched into the Morea with an irresistible force. When he had taken possession of Sparta, ”You are too weak,” said the sultan, ”to control this turbulent province: I will take your daughter to my bed; and you shall pa.s.s the remainder of your life in security and honor.” Demetrius sighed and obeyed; surrendered his daughter and his castles; followed to Adrianople his sovereign and his son; and received for his own maintenance, and that of his followers, a city in Thrace and the adjacent isles of Imbros, Lemnos, and Samothrace. He was joined the next year by a companion [861] of misfortune, the last of the Comnenian race, who, after the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, had founded a new empire on the coast of the Black Sea. [87] In the progress of his Anatolian conquest, Mahomet invested with a fleet and army the capital of David, who presumed to style himself emperor of Trebizond; [88] and the negotiation was comprised in a short and peremptory question, ”Will you secure your life and treasures by resigning your kingdom? or had you rather forfeit your kingdom, your treasures, and your life?” The feeble Comnenus was subdued by his own fears, [881] and the example of a Mussulman neighbor, the prince of Sinope, [89] who, on a similar summons, had yielded a fortified city, with four hundred cannon and ten or twelve thousand soldiers. The capitulation of Trebizond was faithfully performed: [891] and the emperor, with his family, was transported to a castle in Romania; but on a slight suspicion of corresponding with the Persian king, David, and the whole Comnenian race, were sacrificed to the jealousy or avarice of the conqueror. [892] Nor could the name of father long protect the unfortunate Demetrius from exile and confiscation; his abject submission moved the pity and contempt of the sultan; his followers were transplanted to Constantinople; and his poverty was alleviated by a pension of fifty thousand aspers, till a monastic habit and a tardy death released Palaeologus from an earthly master. It is not easy to p.r.o.nounce whether the servitude of Demetrius, or the exile of his brother Thomas, [90] be the most inglorious. On the conquest of the Morea, the despot escaped to Corfu, and from thence to Italy, with some naked adherents: his name, his sufferings, and the head of the apostle St. Andrew, ent.i.tled him to the hospitality of the Vatican; and his misery was prolonged by a pension of six thousand ducats from the pope and cardinals. His two sons, Andrew and Manuel, were educated in Italy; but the eldest, contemptible to his enemies and burdensome to his friends, was degraded by the baseness of his life and marriage. A t.i.tle was his sole inheritance; and that inheritance he successively sold to the kings of France and Arragon. [91] During his transient prosperity, Charles the Eighth was ambitious of joining the empire of the East with the kingdom of Naples: in a public festival, he a.s.sumed the appellation and the purple of _Augustus_: the Greeks rejoiced and the Ottoman already trembled, at the approach of the French chivalry. [92] Manuel Palaeologus, the second son, was tempted to revisit his native country: his return might be grateful, and could not be dangerous, to the Porte: he was maintained at Constantinople in safety and ease; and an honorable train of Christians and Moslems attended him to the grave. If there be some animals of so generous a nature that they refuse to propagate in a domestic state, the last of the Imperial race must be ascribed to an inferior kind: he accepted from the sultan's liberality two beautiful females; and his surviving son was lost in the habit and religion of a Turkish slave.
[Footnote 85: For the genealogy and fall of the Comneni of Trebizond, see Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p. 195;) for the last Palaeologi, the same accurate antiquarian, (p. 244, 247, 248.) The Palaeologi of Montferrat were not extinct till the next century; but they had forgotten their Greek origin and kindred.]
[Footnote 86: In the worthless story of the disputes and misfortunes of the two brothers, Phranza (l. iii. c. 21--30) is too partial on the side of Thomas Ducas (c. 44, 45) is too brief, and Chalcondyles (l. viii. ix.
x.) too diffuse and digressive.]
[Footnote 861]: Kalo-Johannes, the predecessor of David his brother, the last emperor of Trebizond, had attempted to organize a confederacy against Mahomet it comprehended Ha.s.san Bei, sultan of Mesopotamia, the Christian princes of Georgia and Iberia, the emir of Sinope, and the sultan of Caramania. The negotiations were interrupted by his sudden death, A.D. 1458. Fallmerayer, p. 257--260.--M.]
[Footnote 87: See the loss or conquest of Trebizond in Chalcondyles, (l. ix. p. 263--266,) Ducas, (c. 45,) Phranza, (l. iii. c. 27,) and Cantemir, (p. 107.)]
[Footnote 88: Though Tournefort (tom. iii. lettre xvii. p. 179) speaks of Trebizond as mal peuplee, Peysonnel, the latest and most accurate observer, can find 100,000 inhabitants, (Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom.
ii. p. 72, and for the province, p. 53--90.) Its prosperity and trade are perpetually disturbed by the factious quarrels of two _odas_ of Janizaries, in one which 30,000 Lazi are commonly enrolled, (Memoires de Tott, tom. iii. p. 16, 17.)]
[Footnote 881: According to the Georgian account of these transactions, (translated by M. Brosset, additions to Le Beau, vol. xxi. p. 325,) the emperor of Trebizond humbly entreated the sultan to have the goodness to marry one of his daughters.--M.]
[Footnote 89: Ismael Beg, prince of Sinope or Sinople, was possessed (chiefly from his copper mines) of a revenue of 200,000 ducats, (Chalcond. l. ix. p. 258, 259.) Peysonnel (Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 100) ascribes to the modern city 60,000 inhabitants. This account seems enormous; yet it is by trading with people that we become acquainted with their wealth and numbers.]
[Footnote 891: M. Boissonade has published, in the fifth volume of his Anecdota Graeca (p. 387, 401.) a very interesting letter from George Amiroutzes, protovestiarius of Trebizond, to Bessarion, describing the surrender of Trebizond, and the fate of its chief inhabitants.--M.]
[Footnote 892: See in Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 60, the striking account of the mother, the empress Helena the Cantacuzene, who, in defiance of the edict, like that of Creon in the Greek tragedy, dug the grave for her murdered children with her own hand, and sank into it herself.--M.]
[Footnote 90: Sponda.n.u.s (from Gobelin Comment. Pii II. l. v.) relates the arrival and reception of the despot Thomas at Rome,. (A.D. 1461 No.
NO. 3.)]
[Footnote 91: By an act dated A.D. 1494, Sept. 6, and lately transmitted from the archives of the Capitol to the royal library of Paris, the despot Andrew Palaeologus, reserving the Morea, and stipulating some private advantages, conveys to Charles VIII., king of France, the empires of Constantinople and Trebizond, (Sponda.n.u.s, A.D. 1495, No. 2.) M. D. Foncemagne (Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xvii. p.
539--578) has bestowed a dissertation on his national t.i.tle, of which he had obtained a copy from Rome.]
[Footnote 92: See Philippe de Comines, (l. vii. c. 14,) who reckons with pleasure the number of Greeks who were prepared to rise, 60 miles of an easy navigation, eighteen days' journey from Valona to Constantinople, &c. On this occasion the Turkish empire was saved by the policy of Venice.]
The importance of Constantinople was felt and magnified in its loss: the pontificate of Nicholas the Fifth, however peaceful and prosperous, was dishonored by the fall of the Eastern empire; and the grief and terror of the Latins revived, or seemed to revive, the old enthusiasm of the crusades. In one of the most distant countries of the West, Philip duke of Burgundy entertained, at Lisle in Flanders, an a.s.sembly of his n.o.bles; and the pompous pageants of the feast were skilfully adapted to their fancy and feelings. [93] In the midst of the banquet a gigantic Saracen entered the hall, leading a fict.i.tious elephant with a castle on his back: a matron in a mourning robe, the symbol of religion, was seen to issue from the castle: she deplored her oppression, and accused the slowness of her champions: the princ.i.p.al herald of the golden fleece advanced, bearing on his fist a live pheasant, which, according to the rites of chivalry, he presented to the duke. At this extraordinary summons, Philip, a wise and aged prince, engaged his person and powers in the holy war against the Turks: his example was imitated by the barons and knights of the a.s.sembly: they swore to G.o.d, the Virgin, the ladies and the _pheasant_; and their particular vows were not less extravagant than the general sanction of their oath. But the performance was made to depend on some future and foreign contingency; and during twelve years, till the last hour of his life, the duke of Burgundy might be scrupulously, and perhaps sincerely, on the eve of his departure. Had every breast glowed with the same ardor; had the union of the Christians corresponded with their bravery; had every country, from Sweden [94] to Naples, supplied a just proportion of cavalry and infantry, of men and money, it is indeed probable that Constantinople would have been delivered, and that the Turks might have been chased beyond the h.e.l.lespont or the Euphrates. But the secretary of the emperor, who composed every epistle, and attended every meeting, aeneas Sylvius, [95]
a statesman and orator, describes from his own experience the repugnant state and spirit of Christendom. ”It is a body,” says he, ”without a head; a republic without laws or magistrates. The pope and the emperor may s.h.i.+ne as lofty t.i.tles, as splendid images; but _they_ are unable to command, and none are willing to obey: every state has a separate prince, and every prince has a separate interest. What eloquence could unite so many discordant and hostile powers under the same standard?
Could they be a.s.sembled in arms, who would dare to a.s.sume the office of general? What order could be maintained?--what military discipline? Who would undertake to feed such an enormous mult.i.tude? Who would understand their various languages, or direct their stranger and incompatible manners? What mortal could reconcile the English with the French, Genoa with Arragon the Germans with the natives of Hungary and Bohemia? If a small number enlisted in the holy war, they must be overthrown by the infidels; if many, by their own weight and confusion.” Yet the same aeneas, when he was raised to the papal throne, under the name of Pius the Second, devoted his life to the prosecution of the Turkish war.
In the council of Mantua he excited some sparks of a false or feeble enthusiasm; but when the pontiff appeared at Ancona, to embark in person with the troops, engagements vanished in excuses; a precise day was adjourned to an indefinite term; and his effective army consisted of some German pilgrims, whom he was obliged to disband with indulgences and arms. Regardless of futurity, his successors and the powers of Italy were involved in the schemes of present and domestic ambition; and the distance or proximity of each object determined in their eyes its apparent magnitude. A more enlarged view of their interest would have taught them to maintain a defensive and naval war against the common enemy; and the support of Scanderbeg and his brave Albanians might have prevented the subsequent invasion of the kingdom of Naples. The siege and sack of Otranto by the Turks diffused a general consternation; and Pope Sixtus was preparing to fly beyond the Alps, when the storm was instantly dispelled by the death of Mahomet the Second, in the fifty-first year of his age. [96] His lofty genius aspired to the conquest of Italy: he was possessed of a strong city and a capacious harbor; and the same reign might have been decorated with the trophies of the New and the Ancient Rome. [97]
[Footnote 93: See the original feast in Olivier de la Marche, (Memoires, P. i. c. 29, 30,) with the abstract and observations of M. de Ste.
Palaye, (Memoires sur la Chevalerie, tom. i. P. iii. p. 182--185.) The peac.o.c.k and the pheasant were distinguished as royal birds.]
[Footnote 94: It was found by an actual enumeration, that Sweden, Gothland, and Finland, contained 1,800,000 fighting men, and consequently were far more populous than at present.]
[Footnote 95: In the year 1454, Sponda.n.u.s has given, from aeneas Sylvius, a view of the state of Europe, enriched with his own observations. That valuable annalist, and the Italian Muratori, will continue the series of events from the year 1453 to 1481, the end of Mahomet's life, and of this chapter.]
[Footnote 96: Besides the two annalists, the reader may consult Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. iii. p. 449--455) for the Turkish invasion of the kingdom of Naples. For the reign and conquests of Mahomet II., I have occasionally used the Memorie Istoriche de Monarchi Ottomanni di Giovanni Sagredo, (Venezia, 1677, in 4to.) In peace and war, the Turks have ever engaged the attention of the republic of Venice. All her despatches and archives were open to a procurator of St. Mark, and Sagredo is not contemptible either in sense or style. Yet he too bitterly hates the infidels: he is ignorant of their language and manners; and his narrative, which allows only 70 pages to Mahomet II., (p. 69--140,) becomes more copious and authentic as he approaches the years 1640 and 1644, the term of the historic labors of John Sagredo.]
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