the prostrate Genoese implored the clemency of their sovereign. The defenceless situation which secured their obedience, exposed them to the attack of their Venetian rivals, who, in the reign of the elder Andronicus, presumed to violate the majesty of the throne. On the approach of their fleets, the Genoese, with their families and effects, retired into the city; their empty habitations were reduced to ashes; and the feeble prince, who had viewed the destruction of his suburb, expressed his resentment, not by arms, but by ambassadors. This misfortune, however, was advantageous to the Genoese, who obtained, and imperceptibly abused, the dangerous licence of surrounding Galata with a strong wall; of introducing into the ditch the waters of the sea; of erecting lofty turrets; and of mounting a train of military engines on the rampart. The narrow bounds in which they had been circumscribed were insufficient for the growing colony; each day they acquired some addition of landed property; and the adjacent hills were covered with their villas and castles, which they joined and protected by new fortifications.* The navigation and trade of the Euxine was the patrimony of the Greek emperors, who commanded the narrow entrance, the gates, as it were, of that inland sea. In the reign of Michael Palæologus, their prerogative was acknowledged by the sultan of Egypt, who solicited and obtained the liberty of sending an annual ship for the purchase of slaves in Circassia and the Lesser Tartary; a liberty pregnant with mischief to the Christian cause, since these youths were transformed by education and discipline into the formidable Mamalukes. From the colony of Pera, the Genoese engaged with superior advantage in the lucrative trade of the Black Sea; and their industry supplied the Greeks with fish and corn, two articles of food almost equally important to a superstitious

The establishment and progress of the Genoese at Pera, or Galata, is described by Ducange (C. P. Christiana, 1. 1, p. 68, 69) from the Byzantine historians, Pachymer (1. 2, c. 35; 1. 5. 10. 30; 1. 9. 15; 1. 12. 6. 9), Nicephorus Gregoras (1. 5, c. 4; 1. 6, c. 11; 1. 9, c. 5; 1. 11, c. 1; 1. 15, c. 1. 6) and Cantacuzene (l. 1, c. 12; 1. 2, c. 29, &c.).

Both Pachymer (1. 3, c. 3—5) and Nic. Gregoras (1. 4, c. 7), understand and deplore the effects of this dangerous indulgence. Bibars, sultan of Egypt, himself a Tartar, but a devout Mussulman, obtained from the children of Zingis, the permission to build a stately mosch in the capital of Crimea (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343).

people. The spontaneous bounty of nature appears to have bestowed the harvests of the Ukraine, the produce of a rude and savage husbandry; and the endless exportation of salt-fish and caviar is annually renewed by the enormous sturgeons that are caught at the mouth of the Don or Tanais, in their last station of the rich mud and shallow water of the Mæotis.* The waters of the Oxus, the Caspian, the Volga, and the Don, opened a rare and laborious passage for the gems and spices of India; and, after three months' march, the caravans of Carizme met the Italian vessels in the harbours of Crimea. These various branches of trade were monopolized by the dili gence and power of the Genoese. Their rivals of Venice and Pisa were forcibly expelled; the natives were awed by the castles and cities, which arose on the foundations of their humble factories, and their principal establishment of Caffa was besieged without effect by the Tartar powers.

Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 48) was assured at Caffa, that these fishes were sometimes twenty-four or twenty-six feet long, weighed eight or nine hundred pounds, and yielded three or four quintals of caviar. The corn of the Bosphorus had supplied the Athenians in the time of Demosthenes.

De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343, 344. Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i. folio 400. But this land or water carriage could only be practicable when Tartary was united under a wise and powerful monarch. Nic. Gregoras (1. 13, c. 12) is judicious and well informed on the trade and colonies of the Black Sea. Chardin describes the present ruins of Caffa, where, in forty days, he saw above four hundred sail employed in the corn and fish trade. (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 46-48.) [A later account of Caffa has been given by Dr. Clarke (Travels, i. 444), who at the close of the last century found only fifty families, where 36,000 houses had once been inhabited, and who saw the work of destruction and depopulation still in progress. He heard the maledictions, alike of Greeks and Turks, on the Russian "Scythians," who were daily levelling with the ground churches and mosques, palaces and towers, for the sake of obtaining small quantities of lead to cast into bullets. That utter decay should ensue is a natural result. (See Malte Brun and Balbi, p. 529.) Recent events have attached an unusual importance to all that regards the Crimea. For its earliest history, see notes to ch. 9, vol. i. p. 273, and ch. 31, vol. iii. p. 410. There is much in its subsequent progress that deserves the attention of scholars; the kingdom of Bosporus and republic of Cherson ought not to be lost sight of amid the more conspicuous splendours of Persia, Greece, and Rome. The authorities for the ancient fertility of this peninsula are collected by Clinton (F. H. ii. p. 282). Demosthenes had an hereditary interest in its

Destitute of a navy, the Greeks were oppressed by these haughty merchants, who fed or famished Constantinople, according to their interest. They proceeded to usurp the customs, the fishery, and even the toll, of the Bosphorus; and while they derived from these objects a revenue of two hundred thousand pieces of gold, a remnant of thirty thousand was reluctantly allowed to the emperor.* The colony of Pera or Galata acted in peace and war as an independent state; and, as it will happen in distant settlements, the Genoese podesta too often forgot that he was the servant of his own masters.

These usurpations were encouraged by the weakness of the elder Andronicus, and by the civil wars that afflicted his age and the minority of his grandson. The talents of Cantacuzene were employed to the ruin, rather than to the restoration, of the empire; and after his domestic victory, he was condemned to an ignominious trial, whether the Greeks or the Genoese should reign in Constantinople. The merchants of Pera were offended by his refusal of some contiguous lands, some commanding heights, which they proposed to cover with new fortifications; and in the absence of the emperor, who was detained at Demotica by sickness, they ventured to brave the debility of a female reign. A Byzantine vessel, which had presumed to fish at the mouth of the harbour, was sunk by these audacious strangers; the fishermen were murdered. Instead of suing for pardon, the Genoese demanded satisfaction; required, in a haughty strain, that the Greeks should renounce the exercise of navigation; and encountered with regular arms the first sallies of the popular indignation. They instantly occupied the debatable land; and by the labour of a whole people, of either sex and of every age, the wall was raised, and the ditch was sunk, with incredible speed. At the same time, they attacked and burnt two Byzantine galleys; while the three others, the remainder of the imperial navy, escaped from their hands: the habitations without the

concerns. About thirty years before his birth, his maternal grandfather, Gylon, settled at Panticapaum, the capital of Bosporus, where he married a wealthy wife of Scythian (Gothic) descent. Cleobula, the mother of Demosthenes, was the issue of this marriage.ED.] *See Nic. Gregoras, 1. 17, c. 1. [The Genoese had lent money to the government, and farmed the revenue of the port to repay the debt. Finlay, ii. 564.-ED.]

gates, or along the shore, were pillaged and destroyed; and the care of the regent, of the empress Irene, was confined to the preservation of the city. The return of Cantacuzene dispelled the public consternation; the emperor inclined to peaceful counsels; but he yielded to the obstinacy of his enemies, who rejected all reasonable terms, and to the ardour of his subjects, who threatened, in the style of Scripture, to break them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Yet they reluctantly paid the taxes, that he imposed for the construction of ships, and the expenses of the war; and as the two nations were masters, the one of the land, the other of the sea, Constantinople and Pera were pressed by the evils of a mutual siege. The merchants of the colony, who had believed that a few days would terminate the war, already murmured at their losses; the succours from their mother-country were delayed by the factions of Genoa; and the most cautious embraced the opportunity of a Rhodian vessel to remove their families and effects from the scene of hostility. In the spring, the Byzantine fleet, seven galleys and a train of smaller vessels, issued from the mouth of the harbour, and steered in a single line along the shore of Pera; unskilfully presenting their sides to the beaks of the adverse squadron. The crews were composed of peasants and mechanics; nor was their ignorance compensated by the native courage of barbarians; the wind was strong, the waves were rough; and no sooner did the Greeks perceive a distant and inactive enemy, than they leaped headlong into the sea, from a doubtful, to an inevitable peril. The troops that marched to the attack of the lines of Pera were struck, at the same moment, with a similar panic; and the Genoese were astonished, and almost ashamed, at their double victory. Their triumphant vessels, crowned with flowers, and dragging after them the captive galleys, repeatedly passed and repassed before the palace; the only virtue of the emperor was patience; and the hope of revenge his sole consolation. Yet the distress of both parties interposed a temporary agreement; and the shame of the empire was disguised by a thin veil of dignity and power. Summoning the chiefs of the colony, Cantacuzene affected to despise the trivial object of the debate; and, after a mild reproof, most liberally granted the lands, which had been previously resigned to the seeming custody of his officers.*

* The events of this war are related by Cantacuzene (1. 4, c. 11) with

But the emperor was soon solicited to violate the treaty, and to join his arms with the Venetians, the perpetual enemies of Genoa and her colonies. While he compared the reasons of peace and war, his moderation was provoked by a wanton insult of the inhabitants of Pera, who discharged from their rampart a large stone that fell in the midst of Constantinople. On his just complaint, they coldly blamed the imprudence of their engineer; but the next day the insult was repeated, and they exulted in a second proof that the royal city was not beyond the reach of their artillery. Cantacuzene instantly signed his treaty with the Venetians; but the weight of the Roman empire was scarcely felt in the balance of these opulent and powerful republics.* From the straits of Gibraltar to the mouth of the Tanais, their fleets encountered each other with various success; and a memorable battle was fought in the narrow sea, under the walls of Constantinople. It would not be an easy task to reconcile the accounts of the Greeks, the Venetians, and the Genoese;† and while I depend on the narrative of an impartial historian, I shall borrow from each nation the facts that redound to their own disgrace, and the honour of their foes. The Venetians, with their allies the Catalans, had the advantage of number; and their fleet, with the poor addition of eight Byzantine galleys, amounted to seventyfive sail; the Genoese did not exceed sixty-four; but, in those times, their ships of war were distinguished by the superiority of their size and strength. The names and families of their naval commanders, Pisani and Doria, are illus

obscurity and confusion, and by Nic. Gregoras (1. 17, c. 1-7) in a clear and honest narrative. The priest was less responsible than the prince for the defeat of the fleet.

The second war is darkly told by Cantacuzene (1. 4, c. 18, p. 24. 25. 28-32), who wishes to disguise what he dares not deny. I regret this part of Nic. Gregoras, which is still in MS. at Paris. [The MS. is not included in the Bonn edition of 1829-30; but Parisot has given portions of it with a French translation in his Cantacuzène, homme d'état et historien. See note, p. 103.-ED.]

+ Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 144) refers to the most ancient Chronicles of Venice (Caresinus, the continuator of Andrew Dandulus, tom. xii. p. 421, 422) and Genoa (George Stella, Annales Genuenses, tom. xvii. p. 1091, 1092); both which I have diligently consulted, in his great Collections of the Historian of Italy.

See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani of Florence, 1. 2, c. 59, 60, p. 145. 147; c. 74, 75, p. 156, 157, in Muratori's Collection, tom. xiv. VOL. VII.

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