CHAP. sultan of Iconium solicited a personal interview with John LXIV. Vataces; and his artful policy encouraged the Turks to defend their barrier against the common enemy." 36 That barrier indeed was soon overthrown; and the servitude and ruin of the Seljukians exposed the nakedness of the Greeks. The formidable Holagou threatened to march to Constantinople at the head of four hundred thousand men; and the groundless panic of the citizens of Nice will present an image of the terror which he had inspired. The accident of a procession, and the sound of a doleful litany, "From the fury of the Tartars, good Lord deliver us," had scattered the hasty report of an assault and massacre. In the blind credulity of fear, the streets of Nice were crowded with thousands of both sexes, who knew not from what or to whom they fled; and some hours elapsed before the firmness of the military officers could relieve the city from this imaginary foe. But the ambition of Holagou and his successors was fortunately diverted by the conquest of Bagdad, and a long vicissitude of Syrian wars: their hostility to the Moslems inclined them to unite with the Greeks and Franks ;37 and their generosity or contempt had offered the kingdom of Anatolia as the reward of an Armenian vassal. The fragments of the Seljukian monarchy were disputed by the emirs who had occupied the cities or the mountains; but they all confessed the supremacy of the khans of Persia; and he often interposed his authority, and sometimes his arms, to check their depredations, and to preserve the peace and balance of his Decine of Turkish frontier. The death of Cazan,38 one of the greatest chans of and most accomplished princes of the house of Zingis, removed A. D. 1304, this salutary control, and the decline of the Moguls, gave a free scope to the rise and progress of the OTTOMAN EMPIRE.39 After the retreat of Zingis, the sultan Gelaleddin of Carizme the Otto had returned from India to the possession and defence of his A. D. 1240, Persian kingdoms. In the space of eleven years, that hero fought in person fourteen battles; and such was his activity, that he led his cavalry in seventeen days from Teflis to Kerman, a march of a thousand miles. Yet he was oppressed by the jealousy of the Moslem princes, and the innumerable armies of the Moguls; and after his last defeat, Gelaleddin perished

The Mogul

Persia,

May 31.

Origin of

Dans,

36 G. Acropolita, p. 36, 37. Nic. Gregoras, 1. ii. c. 6, l. iv. c. 5.

37 Abulpharagius, who wrote in the year 1284, declares, that the Moguls, since the fabulous defeat of Batou, had not attacked either the Franks or Greeks; and of this he is a competent witness. Hayton, likewise, the Armeniac prince, celebrates their friendship for himself and his nation.

58 Pachymer gives a splendid character of Cazan Khan, the rival of Cyrus and Alexander (1. xii. c. 1.) In the conclusion of his history (I. xiii. c. 36,) he hopes much from the arrival of 30,000 Tochars or Tartars, who were ordered by the successor of Cazan to restrain the Turks of Bithynia, A. D. 1308.

39 The origin of the Ottoman dynasty is illustrated by the critical learning of M. M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 329-337,) d'Anville (Empire Turc, p. 14-22,) two inhabitants of Paris, from whom the Orientals may learn the history and geography of their own country.

Othman,

-1326.

ignobly in the mountains of `Curdistan. His death dissolved a CHAP. veteran and adventurous army, which included under the name LXIV. of Carizmians or Corasmins, many Turkman hords, that had attached themselves to the sultan's fortune. The bolder and more powerful chiefs invaded Syria, and violated the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem; the more humble engaged in the service of Aladin, sultan of Iconium; and among these were the obscure fathers of the Ottoman line. They had formerly pitched their tents near the southern banks of the Oxus, in the plains of Mahan and Nesa; and it is somewhat remarkable, that the same spot should have produced the first authors of the Parthian and Turkish empires. At the head, or in the rear, of a Carizmian army, Soliman Shah was drowned in the passage of the Euphrates; his son Orthogrul became the soldier and subject of Aladin, and established at Surgut, on the banks of the Sangar, a camp of four hundred families or tents, whom he governed fifty-two years both in peace and war. He was the father of Thaman, or Athman, whose Turkish name has been melted into the appellation of the caliph Othman; and if we Reign of describe that pastoral chief as a shepherd and a robber, we must A. 1. 1299 separate from those characters all idea of ignominy and baseness. Othman possessed, and perhaps surpassed, the ordinary virtues of a soldier; and the circumstances of time and place were propitious to his independence and success. The Seljukian dynasty was no more; and the distance and decline of the Mogul khans soon enfranchised him from the control of a superior. He was situate on the verge of the Greek empire; the Koran sanctified his gazi, or holy war, against the infidels; and their political errors unlocked the passes of mount Olympus, and invited him to descend into the plains of Bithynia. Till the reign of Palæologus these passes had been vigilantly guarded by the militia of the country, who were repaid by their own safety and an exemption from taxes. The emperor abolished their privilege and assumed their office; but the tribute was rigorously collected, the custody of the passes was neglected, and the hardy mountaineers degenerated into a trembling crowd of peasants without spirit or discipline. It was on the twenty-seventh of July, in the year twelve hundred and ninety-nine of the Christian era, that Öthman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia ;40 and the singular accuracy of the date seems to disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructive growth of the monster. The annals of twenty-seven years of his reign would exhibit a repetition of the same inroads; and his hereditary troops were multiplied in each campaign by the accession of captives and volunteers. Instead of retreating to the hills, he maintained the most useful and de

40 See Pachymer, 1. x. c. 25, 26, 1. xiii. c. 33, 34. 36; and concerning the guard of the mountains, I. i. c. 3-6: Nicephorus Gregoras, I. vii. c. i. and the first book of Laonicus Chalcondyles, the Athenian.

CHAP. fensible posts; fortified the towns and castles which he had LXIV. first pillaged; and renounced the pastoral life for the baths

ileiga of Orchan,

--1360.

and palaces of his infant-capitals. But it was not till Othman was oppressed by age and infirmities, that he received the welcome news of the conquest of Prusa, which had been surrendered by famine or treachery to the arms of his son Orchan. The glory of Othman is chiefly founded on that of his descendants; but the Turks have transcribed or composed a royal testament of his last counsels of justice and moderation.41

From the conquest of Prusa, we may date the true era of A D. 1326 the Ottoman empire. The lives and possessions of the Christian subjects were redeemed by a tribute or ransom of thirty thousand crowns of gold; and the city, by the labours of Orchan, assumed the aspect of a Mahometan capital; Prusa was decorated with a mosque, a college, and a hospital, of royal foundation; the Seljukian coin was changed for the name and impression of the new dynasty; and the most skilful professors, of human and divine knowledge, attracted the Persian and Arabian students from the ancient schools of Oriental learning. The office of vizir was instituted for Aladin, the brother of Orchan; and a different habit distinguished the citizens from the peasants, the Moslems from the infidels. All the troops of Othman had consisted of loose squadrons of Turkman cavalry, who served without pay and fought without discipline: but a regular body of infantry was first established and trained by the prudence of his son. A great number of volunteers was enrolled with a small stipend, but with the permission of living at home, unless they were summoned to the field; their rude manners, and seditious temper, disposed Orchan to educate his young captives as his soldiers and those of the prophet; but the Turkish peasants were still allowed to mount on horseback, and follow his standard, with the appellation and the hopes of freebooters. By these arts he formed an army of twenty-five thousand Moslems; a train of battering engines was framed for the use of

41 I am ignorant whether the Turks have any writers older than Mahomet II. nor can I reach beyond a meagre chronicle (Annales Turcici ad Annum 1550,) translated by John Gaudier, and published by Leunclavius (ad calcem Laonic. Chalcond. p. 311-350,) with copious pandects, or commentaries. The History of the Growth and Decay (A. D. 1300-1683) of the Othman empire, was translated into English from the Latin MS. of Demetrius Cantemir, prince of Moldavia (London, 1734, in folio.) The author is guilty of strange blunders in Oriental History; but he was conversant with the language, the annals, and institutions of the Turks. Cantemir partly draws his materials from the Synopsis of Saadi Effendi of Larissa, dedicated in the year 1696 to sultan Mustapha, and a valuable abridgment of the original historians. In one of the Ramblers, Dr. Johnson praises Knolles (a General History of the Turks to the present year, London, 1603) as the first of historians, unhappy only in the choice of his subject. Yet I much doubt whether a partial and verbose compilation from Latin writers, thirteen hundred folio pages of speeches and battles, can either instruct or amuse an enlightened age, which requires from the historian some tincture of philosophy and criticism.

1

Fits COM

quest of

A. D. 1326

Anatolia

Turkish

A. D.

sieges; and the first successful experiment was made on the CHAP. cities of Nice and Nicomedia. Orchan granted a safe conduct LXIV. to all who were desirous of departing with their families and effects; but the widows of the slain were given in marriage to the conquerors; and the sacrilegious plunder, the books, the Bithynia, vases, and the images, were sold or ransomed at Constantino--1339. ple. The emperor Andronicus the younger was vanquished and wounded by the son of Othman ;42 he subdued the whole province or kingdom of Bithynia, as far as the shores of the Bosphorus and Hellespont; and the Christians confessed the justice and clemency of a reign, which claimed the voluntary attachment of the Turks of Asia. Yet Orchan was content with the modest title of emir; and in the list of his compeers, the princes of Roum or Anatolia, 43 his military forces were sur-Division of passed by the emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, each of among the whom could bring into the field an army of forty thousand men. emirs, Their dominions were situate in the heart of the Seljukian 1300, &c. kingdom; but the holy warriors, though of inferior note, who formed the new principalities of the Greek empire, are more conspicuous in the light of history. The maritime country, from the Propontis to the Mæander and the isle of Rhodes, so long threatened and so often pillaged, was finally lost about the thirtieth year of Andronicus the elder.44 Two Turkish chieftains, Sarukhan and Aidin, left their names to their conquests, and their conquests to their posterity. The captivity or ruin of Loss of the the seven churches of Asia was consummated; and the barbarous provinces, lords of Ionia and Lydia still trample on the monuments of classic 1313, &c. and Christian antiquity. In the loss of Ephesus, the Christians deplored the fall of the first angel, the extinction of the first candlestick, of the revelations :45 the desolation is complete; and the temple of Diana, or the church of Mary, will equally elude the search of the curious traveller. The circus and three stately theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and foxes; Sardes is reduced to a miserable village; the God of Mahomet, without a rival or a son, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira and Pergamus; and the populousness of Smyrna is

42 Cantacuzene, though he relates the battle and heroic flight of the younger Andronicus (l. ii. c. 6, 7, 8,) dissembles by his silence the loss of Prusa, Nice, and Nicomedia, which are fairly confessed by Nicephorus Gregoras (I. viii. 15, ix. 9. 13, xi. 6.) It appears that Nice was taken by Orchan in 1330, and Nicomedia in 1339, which are somewhat different from the Turkish dates.

43 The partition of the Turkish emirs is extracted from two contemporaries, the Greek Nicephorus Gregoras (1. vii. 1,) and the Arabian Marakeschi (de Guignes, tom. ii. P. ii. p. 76, 77.) See likewise the first book of Laonicus Chalcondyles.

44 Pachymer, 1. xiii. e. 13.

45 See the Travels of Wheeler and Spon, of Pocock and Chandler, and more particularly Smith's Survey of the Seven Churches of Asia, p. 205--276. The more pious antiquaries labour to reconcile the promises and threats of the author of the Revelations with the present state of the seven cities. Perhaps it would be more prudent to confine his predictions to the characters and events of his own times.

Asiatic

A. D.

CHAP. Supported by the foreign trade of the Franks and Armenians. LXIV. Philadelphia alone has been saved by prophecy, or courage.

At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant citizens defended their religion and freedom above fourscore years; and at length capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect; a column in a scene of ruins; a pleasing example, that the Theknights paths of honour and safety may sometimes be the same. The A. D. 1810, servitude of Rhodes was delayed above two centuries by the A. B. 1523, establishment of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem :46 under the discipline of the order, that island emerged into fame and opulence; the noble and warlike monks were renowned by land and sea; and the bulwark of Christendom provoked, and repelled, the arms of the Turks and Saracens.

of Rhodes,

'Aug. 15

Jan. 1.

First pas

sage of the

Europe,

-1347.

The Greeks, by their intestine divisions, were the authors Turks into of their final ruin. During the civil wars of the elder and A. D. 1341 younger Andronicus, the son of Othman achieved, almost without resistance, the conquest of Bithynia; and the same disorders encouraged the Turkish emirs of Lydia and Ionia to build a fleet, and to pillage the adjacent islands and the seacoast of Europe. In the defence of his life and honour, Cantacuzene was tempted to prevent, or imitate, his adversaries, by calling to his aid the public enemies of his religion and country. Amir, the son of Aidin, concealed under a Turkish garb the humanity and politeness of a Greek; he was united with the great domestic by mutual esteem and reciprocal services; and their friendship is compared, in the vain rhetoric of the times, to the perfect union of Orestes and Pylades.47 On the report of the danger of his friend, who was persecuted by an ungrateful court, the prince of Ionia assembled at Smyrna a fleet of three hundred vessels, with an army of twenty-nine thousand men; sailed in the depth of winter, and cast anchor at the mouth of the Hebrus. From thence, with a chosen band of two thousand Turks, he marched along the banks of the river, and rescued the empress, who was besieged 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 message with a present of rich

46 Consult the ivth book of the Histoire de l'Ordre de Malthe, par l'Abbé de Vertot. That pleasing writer betrays his ignorance, in supposing that Othman, a freebooter of the Bithynian hills, could besiege Rhodes by sea and land.

47 Nicephorus Gregoras has expatiated with pleasure on this amiable charac. ter (1. xii. 7, xiii. 4. 10, xiv. 1. 9, xvi. 6.) Cantacuzene speaks with honour and esteem of his ally (1. iii. c. 56, 57. 63, 64. 66, 67, 68. 86. 89. 95, 96:) but he seems ignorant of his own sentimental passion for the Turk, and indirectly denies the possibility of such unnatural friendship (l. iv. c. 40.)