Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/416

 394 THE DECLINE AND FALL sides of their horses^ in complete armour, their hehiiets laced, and their lances in their hands. Their numerous train of Ser- jeants ''^ and archers occupied the transports ; and each transport was towed by the strength and swiftness of a galley. The six divisions traversed the Bosphorus, without encountering an enemy or an obstacle ; to land the foremost was the wish, to conquer or die was the resolution, of every division and of every soldier. Jealous of the pre-eminence of danger, the knights in their heavy armour leaped into the sea, when it rose as high as their girdle ; the Serjeants and archers Avere animated by their valour ; and the squires, letting down the drawbridges of the palanders, led the horses to the shore. Before the squadrons could mount, and form, and couch their lances, the seventy thousand Greeks had vanished from their sight ; the timid Alexius gave the example to his troops ; and it was only by the plunder of his rich pavilions that the Latins Avere informed that they had fought against an emperor. In the first consternation of the flying enemy, they resolved, by a double attack, to open the entrance of the harbour. The tower of Galata,'*' in the sub- urb of Pera, was attacked and stormed by the French, while the ^ enetians assumed the more difficult task of forcing the boom or chain that was stretched from that tower to the Byzan- tine shore. After some fruitless attempts, their intrepid per- severance prevailed ; twenty ships of war, the relics of the Grecian navy, were either sunk or taken ; the enormous and massy links of iron were cut asunder by the shears, or broken by the weight of the galleys ; " and the Venetian fleet, safe and triumphant, rode at anchor in the port of Constantinople. By 5 To avoid the vague expressions of followers, &c., I use, after Villehardouin, the word Serjeants for all horsemen who were not knights. There were Serjeants at arms, and Serjeants at law ; and, if we visit the parade and Westminster-hall, we may observe the strange result of the distinction (Ducange, Glossar. Latin, Setvientes, &c. torn. vi. p. 226-231). "•^ It is needless to observe that on the subject of Galata, the chain, &c. , Ducange is accurate and full. Consult likewise the proper chapters of the C. P. Christiana of the same author. The inhabitants of Galata were so vain and ignorant that they applied to themselves St. Paul's Epistle to the Galalians. [The chain was fixed, on the city side, close to the gate of St. Eugenius. Part of the chain is still preserved in the court of the church of St. Irene. Cp. Mordtmann, Esquisse topo- graphique de Constantinople, p. 49.] '^The vessel that broke the chain was named the Eagle, Aquila (Dandol. Chronicon. p. 322), which Blondus (de Gestis Venet. ) has changed into Aquilo, the north wind. Ducange, Observations, No. 83, maintains the latter reading ; but he had not seen the respectable text of Dandolo ; nor did he enough consider the topography of the harbour. The south-east would have been, a more effectual wind..