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 CHAPTER IV. THE GREEKS UNDER TURKISH BONDAGE. The monstrous wrong had been accomplished ; the old magnificent city of Constantine the Great was now in the hands of the ruler of the Os- mans. A history of eleven centuries had reached its termination. The significance of the increase of power of the Turks was soon ap- parent to the Christian nations of the West, who had permitted the last Emperor of Byzantium to perish. As the history of the Hellenes during the last century of the Roman republic belongs to the dark leaves in the annals of the Greek people, exactly so does the history of this nation from the time of the appearance of the fearful Moham- med II. present for centuries a dark picture, only scantily illuminated here and there by a flash of light. We have to place ourselves in a certain far- distant position to obtain a historical perspective in order to see how the subjection and the gath- ering of the whole Greek nation under Osmanic