Sophia, joined in the communion of sacrifice and prayer; and the names of the two pontiffs were solemnly commemorated: the names of Nicholas the Fifth, the vicar of Christ, and of the patriarch Gregory, who had been driven into exile by a rebellious people.

and fanati

Greeks

But the dress and language of the Latin priest who officiated Obstinacy at the altar were an object of scandal; and it was observed with cism of the horror that he consecrated a cake or wafer of unleavened bread and poured cold water into the cup of the sacrament. A national historian acknowledges with a blush that none of his countrymen, not the emperor himself, were sincere in this occasional conformity.40 Their hasty and unconditional submission was palliated by a promise of future revisal; but the best or the worst of their excuses was the confession of their own perjury. When they were pressed by the reproaches of their honest brethren, "Have patience," they whispered, "have patience till God shall have delivered the city from the great dragon who seeks to devour us. You shall then perceive whether we are truly reconciled with the Azymites." But patience is not the attribute of zeal; nor can the arts of a court be adapted to the freedom and violence of popular enthusiasm. From the dome of St. Sophia, the inhabitants of either sex and of every degree rushed in crowds to the cell of the monk Gennadius," to consult the oracle of the church. The holy man was invisible; entranced, as it should seem, in deep meditation or divine rapture; but he had exposed on the door of his cell a speaking tablet; and they successively withdrew, after reading these tremendous words: "O miserable Romans! why will ye abandon the truth? and why, instead of confiding in God, will ye put your trust in the Italians? In losing your faith, you will lose your city. Have mercy on me, O Lord! I protest, in thy presence,

40 Phranza, one of the conforming Greeks, acknowledges that the measure was adopted only propter spem auxilii; he affirms with pleasure that those who refused to perform their devotion in St. Sophia, extra culpam et in pace essent (1. iii. c. 20).

41 His primitive and secular name was George Scholarius, which he changed for that of Gennadius, either when he became a monk [in the monastery of the Pantokrator] or a patriarch. His defence, at Florence, of the same union which he so furiously attacked at Constantinople, has tempted Leo Allatius (Diatrib. de Georgiis, in Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p. 760-786) to divide him into two men; but Renaudot (p. 343-383) has restored the identity of his person, and the duplicity of his character. [Monographs by C. Sathas, reúpyios Exoλápios, 1865; T. E. Evangelides, revvádios B' d Exoλápios, 1896; I. Dräseke, Zu Georgios Scholarios, in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, iv. 561 sqq. The writings of Gennadius are collected in Migne, P.G. 160.]

[Lucas Notaras]

that I am innocent of the crime. O miserable Romans! consider, pause, and repent. At the same moment that you renounce the religion of your fathers, by embracing impiety, you submit to a foreign servitude." According to the advice of Gennadius, the religious virgins, as pure as angels and as proud as dæmons, rejected the act of union and abjured all communion with the present and future associates of the Latins; and their example was applauded and imitated by the greatest part of the clergy and people. From the monastery, the devout Greeks dispersed themselves in the tavern; drank confusion to the slaves of the pope; 42 emptied their glasses in honour of the image of the holy Virgin; and besought her to defend against Mahomet the city which she had formerly saved from Chosroes and the Chagan. In the double intoxication of zeal and wine, they valiantly exclaimed, "What occasion have we for succour, or union, or Latins? far from us be the worship of the Azymites!" During the winter that preceded the Turkish conquest, the nation was distracted by this epidemical frenzy; and the season of Lent, the approach of Easter, instead of breathing charity and love, served only to fortify the obstinacy and influence of the zealots. The confessors scrutinised and alarmed the conscience of their votaries, and a rigorous penance was imposed on those who had received the communion from a priest who had given an express or tacit consent to the union. His service at the altar propagated the infection to the mute and simple spectators of the ceremony; they forfeited, by the impure spectacle, the virtue of their sacerdotal character; nor was it lawful, even in danger of sudden death, to invoke the assistance of their prayers or absolution. No sooner had the church of St. Sophia been polluted by the Latin sacrifice than it was deserted as a Jewish synagogue, or an heathen temple, by the clergy and people; and a vast and gloomy silence prevailed in that venerable dome, which had so often smoked with a cloud of incense, blazed with innumerable lights, and resounded with the voice of prayer and thanksgiving. The Latins were the most odious of heretics and infidels; and the first minister of the empire, the great duke, was heard to declare that he had rather behold, in Constanti

42 [Ubertinus Pusculus (ii. 1. 498 sqq., ed. Ellissen, p. 36-7) narrates that Gennadius suborned a Bohemian heretic, who happened to be in the city, to stir up the people against the Union and inveigh against the Pope.]

nople, the turban of Mahomet than the pope's tiara or a cardinal's hat.43 A sentiment so unworthy of Christians and patriots was familiar and fatal to the Greeks: the emperor was deprived of the affection and support of his subjects; and their native cowardice was sanctified by resignation to the divine decree or the visionary hope of a miraculous deliverance.

Constanti

Mahomet

1453, April

Of the triangle which composes the figure of Constantinople, Siege of the two sides along the sea were made inaccessible to an enemy: nople by the Propontis by nature, and the harbour by art. Between the II., A.D. two waters, the basis of the triangle, the land-side was protected 6-May 29 by a double wall and a deep ditch of the depth of one hundred feet. Against this line of fortification, which Phranza, an eyewitness, prolongs to the measure of six miles, 45 the Ottomans directed their principal attack; and the emperor, after distributing the service and command of the most perilous stations, undertook the defence of the external wall. In the first days. of the siege, the Greek soldiers descended into the ditch, or sallied into the field; but they soon discovered that, in the proportion of their numbers, one Christian was of more value than twenty Turks; and, after these bold preludes, they were prudently content to maintain the rampart with their missile weapons. Nor should this prudence be accused of pusillanimity. The nation was indeed pusillanimous and base; but the last Constantine deserves the name of an hero; his noble band of volunteers was inspired with Roman virtue; and the foreign auxiliaries supported the honour of the Western chivalry. The incessant volleys of lances and arrows were accompanied with the smoke, the sound, and the fire of their musketry and cannon. Their small arms discharged at the same time either five or even ten balls of lead of the size of a walnut; and, according to the closeness of the ranks and the force of the powder, several breast

13 ÞAKIÓλIOV, KAλUTTрa, may be fairly translated a cardinal's hat. The difference of the Greek and Latin habits embittered the schism.

44 [Niccolò Barbaro, p. 14, 15, mentions that during the last two weeks of March, a Venetian sea-captain named Diedo, with the crews of his vessels, was employed by the emperor to dig a ditch in front of a portion of the wall near the Porta Caligaria (Egri Kapu). This was a weak spot.]

45 We are obliged to reduce the Greek miles to the smallest measure which is preserved in the wersts of Russia, of 547 French toises, and of 104% to a degree. The six miles of Phranza do not exceed four English miles (D'Anville, Mesures Itinéraires, p. 61, 123, &c.). [Cp. Critobulus, i, 28; he gives 126 stadia (153 miles) as the circuit of the city, allowing 48 for the land wall, 35 for the side of the Golden Horn. For the walls cp. above, vol. ii. p. 159, n. 33.]

plates and bodies were transpierced by the same shot. But the Turkish approaches were soon sunk in trenches or covered with ruins. Each day added to the science of the Christians; but their inadequate stock of gunpowder was wasted in the operations of each day. Their ordnance was not powerful either in size or number; and, if they possessed some heavy cannon, they feared to plant them on the walls, lest the aged structure should be shaken and overthrown by the explosion.46 The same destructive secret had been revealed to the Moslems; by whom it was employed with the superior energy of zeal, riches, and [Bombard- despotism. The great cannon of Mahomet has been separately gins, April noticed an important and visible object in the history of the times; but that enormous engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude; the long order of the Turkish artillery was pointed against the walls; fourteen batteries thundered at once on the most accessible places; and of one of these it is ambiguously expressed that it was mounted with one hundred and thirty guns, or that it discharged one hundred and thirty bullets. Yet, in the power and activity of the sultan, we may discern the infancy of the new science. Under a master who counted the moments, the great cannon could be loaded and

ment be

12]

46 At indies doctiores nostri facti paravere contra hostes machinamenta, quæ tamen avare dabantur. Pulvis erat nitri modica, exigua; tela modica; bombarde, si aderant incommoditate loci, primum hostes offendere maceriebus alveisque tectos non poterant. Nam siquæ magnæ erant, ne murus concuteretur noster, quiescebant. This passage of Leonardus Chiensis is curious and important. [The Turks had directed twelve large cannons (apart from the fourteen batteries) against the land wall; three against the Tekfour Serai Palace, four against the Gate of Romanus, three against the Gate of Selymbria, and two against the Golden Gate. For the gates see the Plan of the City above, vol. ii. p. 159. The chief place of assault was in the Lycus Valley, which lay between the Gates of Hadrianople (Porta Charisii) on the north, and Romanus on the south. Here was the Pempton or Fifth Military Gate. Dethier suggested, and Pears (op. cit. p. 429 sqq.) has made it virtually certain, that by the "Gate of Romanus" in the accounts of the siege is meant, not the old gate of that name, but the Pempton. This assumption alone is consistent with the circumstances of the final attack. The present name of the old gate of S. Romanus, Top Kapu Cannon Gate, seems to have been due to reverse transference. It must have been originally given to the Pempton, where the big gun was placed (Pears, op. cit. p. 435). (It may be noted here that the Porta Polyandri is not to be identified, as it has usually been, with the Porta Charisii, but with the Porta Rhesii (or Rhegii); see Th. Preger in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, xiv. 272 sqq.) The dangerous and important post at the "S. Romanus Gate" was defended by 3000 men (including 500 Genoese), under the command of the Emperor and Giustiniani, who were supported by Don Francisco of Toledo, a relative of the Emperor.]

47 According to Chalcondyles and Phranza, the great cannon burst: an accident which, according to Ducas, was prevented by the artist's skill. It is evident that they do not speak of the same gun.