1341-1347. CHA P. The Greeks by their inteftine divifions, were the au LXIV. thors of their final ruin. During the civil wars of the elder and younger Andronicus, the fon of Othman atFirst paffage of the Turks chieved, almoft without refiftance, the conqueft of Bithyinto Europe, nia; and the fame diforders encouraged the Turkish emirs A. D. of Lydia and Ionia to build a fleet, and to pillage the adjacent iflands and the sea-coast of Europe. In the defence of his life and honour, Cantacuzene was tempted to prevent, or imitate, his adverfaries; by calling to his aid the public enemies of his religion and country. Amir, the fon of Aidin, concealed under a Turkish garb the humanity and politenefs of a Greek; he was united with the great domeftic by mutual efteem and reciprocal services; and their friendship is compared, in the vain rhetoric of the times, to the perfect union of Oreftes and Pylades (47)On the report of the danger of his friend, who was perfecuted by an ungrateful court, the prince of Ionia affenbled at Smyrna a fleet of three hundred veffels, with an army of twenty-nine thoufand men; failed in the depth of winter, and caft anchor at the mouth of the Hebrus. From thence, with a chofen band of two thousand Turks, he marched along the banks of the river, and refcued the emprefs, who was befieged in Demotica by the wild Bulgarians. At that disastrous moment, the life or death of his beloved Cantacuzene was concealed by his flight into Servia: but the grateful Irene, impatient to behold her deliverer, invited him to enter the city, and accompanied her meffage with a prefent of rich apparel, and an hundred horfes. By a peculiar strain of delicacy, the gentle Barbarian refufed, in the abfence of an unfortunate friend, to vifit his wife, or to taste the luxuries of the palace; sustained in his tent the rigour of the winter; and rejected the hofpitable gift, that he might share the hardships of two thousand companions, all as deferving as himself of that honour and diftinction. Neceffity and revenge might juftify his prædatory excurfions by fea and land: he left nine thousand five hundred men for the guard of his fleet; and perfevered in (47) Nicephorus Gregoras has expatiated with pleasure on this amiable character (1. vii. 7. xiii. 4. 10. xiv. 1. 9. xvi. 6.). Cantacuzene speaks with honour and esteem of his ally (l. iii. c. 56, 57. 63, 64. 66, 67, 68. 86. 89. 95, 96.); but he feems ignorant of his own fentimental paffion for the Turk, and indirectly denies the poflibility of fuch unnatural friendship (1. iv. c, 40.). LXIV. in the fruitless search of Cantacuzene, till his embarkation CHA P. was haftened by a fictitious letter, the feverity of the feafon, the clamours of his independent troops, and the weight of his fpoil and captives. In the profecution of the civil war, the prince of Ionia twice returned to Europe; joined his arms with thofe of the emperor; besieged Theffalonica, and threatened Conftantinople. Calumny might affix fome reproach on his imperfect aid, and hafty departure, and a bribe of ten thousand crowns, which he accepted from the Byzantine court; but his friend was fatisfied; and the conduct of Amir is excufed by the most facred duty of defending against the Latins his hereditary dominions. The maritime power of the Turks had united the pope, and the king of Cyprus, the republic of Venice, and the order of St. John, in a laudable crusade; their gallies invaded the coaft of Ionia; and Amir was flain with an arrow, in the attempt to wreft from the Rhodian knights the citadel of Smyrna (48). Before his death, he generously recommended another ally of his own nation; not more fincere or zealous than himself, but more able to afford a prompt and powerful fuccour, by his fituation along the Propontis and in the front of Conftantinople. By the profpect of a more advantageous treaty, the Turkish prince of Bithynia was detached from his engagements Marriage with Anne of Savoy; and the pride of Orchan dictated of Orchan the most folemn proteftations, that if he could obtain the Greek prindaughter of Cantacuzene, he would invariably fulfil the cefs, duties of a fubject and a fon. Parental tenderness was filenced by the voice of ambition; the Greek clergy connived at the marriage of a Chriftian princefs with a fectary of Mahomet; and the father of Theodora describes, with shameful fatisfaction, the dishonour of the purple (49). A body of Turkish cavalry attended the ambaffadors, who difembarked from thirty yeffels before his camp of Selybria. (48) After the conquest of Smyrna by the Latins, the defence of this fortrefs was impofed by pope Gregory XI. on the knights of Rhodes (see Vertot, 1. v.). (49) See Cantacuzenus, 1. iii. c. 95. Nicephorus Gregoras, who, for the light of mount Thabor, brands the emperor with the names of tyrant and Herod, excufes, rather than blames, this Turkish marriage, and alledges the pallion and power of Orchan, εγγυτατος, και τη δυναμει τες κατ' αυτον ηδη Περσικες (Turkil) ὑπεραίρων Σατραπας (1. 27. 5.). He afterwards celebrates his kingdom and armies. See his reign in Cantemir, p. ·24-30 with a A.D. 1346. CHAP. bria. A ftately pavillion was erected, in which the emprefs LXIV. Irene paffed the night with her daughters. In the morn Establish A.D. 1353. ing, Theodora afcended a throne, which was furrounded with curtains of filk and gold: the troops were under arms: but the emperor alone was on horseback. At a signal the curtains were fuddenly withdrawn, to disclose the bride, or the victim, encircled by kneeling eunuchs and hymenæal torches the found of flutes and trumpets proclaimed the joyful event; and her pretended happiness was the theme of the nuptial fong, which was chanted by fuch poets as the age could produce. Without the rites of the church, Theodora was delivered to her barbarous lord: but it had been ftipulated, that the fhould preferve her religion in the haram of Burfa; and her father celebrates her charity and devotion in this ambiguous fituation. After his peaceful establishment on the throne of Conftantinople, the Greek emperor vifited his Turkish ally, who with four fons, by various wives, expected him at Scutari, on the Afiatic fhore. The two princes partook, with feeming cordiality, of the pleafures of the banquet and the chace; and Theodora was permitted to repass the Bofphorus, and to enjoy fome days in the fociety of her mother. But the friendship of Orchan was fubfervient to his religion and interest; and in the Genoese war he joined without a blush the enemies of Cantacuzene. In the treaty with the emprefs Anne, the Ottoman ment of the prince had inferted a fingular condition, that it should be Ottomans lawful for him to fell his prifoners at Conftantinople, or in Europe, tranfport them into Afia. A naked crowd of Chriftians of both fexes and every age, of priests and monks, of matrons and virgins, was expofed in the public market; the whip was frequently ufed to quicken the charity of redemption; and the indigent Greeks deplored the fate of their brethren, who were led away to the worfst evils of temporal and fpiritual bondage (50). Cantacuzene was reduced to fubfcribe the fame terms; and their execution must have been ftill more pernicious to the empire: a body of ten thousand Turks had been detached to the affistance of the empress Anne; but the entire forces of Orchan were (50) The most lively and concife picture of this captivity, may be found in the hiftory of Ducas (c. 8.), who fairly defcribes what Cantacuzene confeffes with a guilty blufh! LXIV. were exerted in the fervice of his father. Yet thefe cala- C H A P. mities were of a tranfient nature; as soon as the storm had paffed away, the fugitives might return to their habitations; and at the conclufion of the civil and foreign wars, Europe was completely evacuated by the Moflems of Afia. It was in his last quarrel with his pupil that Cantacuzene inflicted the deep and deadly wound, which could never be healed by his fucceffors, and which is poorly expiated by his theological dialogues against the prophet Mahomet. Ignorant of their own hiftory, the modern Turks confound their firft and their final paffage of the Hellefpont (51), and defcribe the fon of Orchan, as a nocturnal robber, who, with eighty companions, explores by ftratagem an hoftile and unknown fhore. Soliman, at the head of ten thousand horse, was tranfported in the vessels, and entertained as the friend, of the Greek emperor. In the civil wars of Romania, he performed fome fervice and perpetrated more mifchief; but the Cherfonefus was infenfibly filled with a Turkish colony; and the Byzantine court folicited in vain the reftitution of the fortreffes of Thrace. After fome artful delays between the Ottoman prince and his fon, their ranfom was valued at fixty thousand crowns, and the first payment had been made, when an earthquake fhook the walls and cities of the provinces; the dismantled places were occupied by the Turks; and Gallipoli, the key of the Hellefpont, was rebuilt and repeopled by the policy of Soliman. The abdication of Cantacuzene diffolved the feeble bands of domestic alliance; and his last advice admonished his countrymen to decline a rafh conteft, and to compare their own weakness with the numbers and valour, the discipline and enthusiasm, of the Moflems. His prudent counfels were defpifed by the headstrong vanity of youth, and foon juftified by the victories of the Ottomans, Death of But as he practifed in the field the exercife of the jerid, Orchan and Soliman was killed by a fall from his horfe; and the aged Orchan wept and expired on the tomb of his valiant fon. But the Greeks had not time to rejoice in the death of The reign their enemies; and the Furkilh fcymetar was wielded with and Euro the (51) In this paffage, and the first conquefts in Europe, Cantemir (p. 27, &c.) gives a miferable idea of his Turkish guides: nor am I much better fatisfied with Chalcondyles (1. i. p. 12, &c.). They forgot to confult the most authentic record, the 4th book of Cantacuzene. I likewife regret the Jatt books, which are ftill manufcripts, of Nicephorus Gregoras. his fon Soli man. pean con CHAP. the fame spirit by Amurath the firft, the fon of Orchan LXIV. and the brother of Soliman. By the pale and fainting light of the Byzantine annals (52), we can difcern, that quests of Amurath I. he fubdued without refiftance the whole province of RoA. D. mania or Thrace, from the Hellefpont to mount Hæmus, 1360-1389, and the verge of the capital; and that Adrianople, was September. chofen for the royal feat of his government and religion in Europe. Conftantinople, whofe decline is almost coeval with her foundation, had often, in the lapfe of a thousand years, been affaulted by the Barbarians of the Eaft and Weft; but never till this fatal hour had the Greeks been furrounded, both in Afia and Europe, by the arms of the fame hoftile monarchy. Yet the prudence or generofity of Amurath poftponed for a while this eafy conqueft; and his pride was fatisfied with the frequent and humble attendance of the emperor John Palæologus and his four fons, who followed at his fummons the court and camp of the Ottoman prince. He marched against the Sclavonian nations between the Danube and the Adriatic, the Bulgarians, Servians, Bofnians, and Albanians; and these warlike tribes, who had fo often infulted the majefty of the empire, were repeatedly broken by his deftructive inroads. Their countries did not abound either in gold or filver; nor were their ruftic hamlets and townships enriched by commerce or decorated by the arts of luxury. But the natives of the foil have been diftinguifhed in every age by their hardinefs of mind and body; and they were converted by a prudent inftitution into the firmest and most faithful fupporters of the Ottoman greatnefs (53). The vizir of Amurath reminded his fovereign that, according to the Mahometan law, he was entitled to a fifth part of the spoil and captives; and that the duty might eafily be levied, if vigilant officers were ftationed at Gallipoli, to watch the paffage, and to felect for his use the ftouteft and most beautiful of the Chriftian 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 confecrated and named by a celebrated dervish. Standing (52) After the conclufion of Cantacuzene and Gregoras, there follows a dark interval of an hundred years. George Phranza, Michael Ducas, and Laonicus Chalcondyles, all three wrote after the taking of Conftantinople. (53) See Cantemir, p. 37-41. with his own large and curious annotae |