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 MAHOMET ENTEES THE CITY 351 defenders, and the Gate of St. Eomanus being forced or opened, access to the city was easy. A band made their way to the Adrianople Gate, which they opened from the inside, and the city was from that moment in the power of the enemy. 1 As the sun rose Mahomet saw that his great effort had succeeded. Where Arabs, with even greater numbers than he commanded, in the first flush of the victorious career of Islam, with the presence of the great Eyoub, the companion of the Prophet, to encourage them and to speak of the wondrous rewards which Paradise had in store for the believers who should enter New Koine or die in the attempt ; where Murad thirty years before; and where twenty other besieging armies had been unable to capture the world's capital, he had succeeded. Seated on horseback beneath his great standard and insignia, he watched with the legitimate pride of a conqueror the entry of his hordes into the city. 2 The morning sun shed its rays upon him and his standard as his soldiers thronged through the Gate of the Assault or hastened towards that of Adrianople. The entry was not long after sunrise and probably between five and six o'clock. 3 If credit is to be given to the story of the entry of the Capture of Turks at the Kerkoporta as related by Ducas, then it may totwo" 3 be said that the capture of the city was due to two accidents : accldents - the leaving open of that gate and the wound of Justiniani. It is beyond doubt that the immediate cause of the capture was the withdrawal of John Justiniani, followed by the flight of a considerable number of his men. In the words of Cambini, a contemporary of the siege, but writing at a sufficiently remote period to look calmly 1 Crit. lxi. ; Chalc. p. 164. Ahmed Muktar Pasha's Conquest of Constantinople. 2 Crit. lxi. ; Tetaldi, p. 23, speaks of ' deux banniers.' 3 Crit. lxi.; Tetaldi, p. 29, 'a l'aube du jour; ' Barbaro (p. 55) at sunrise. Phrantzes says that possession of the city was obtained at half past two, which by the then and present prevalent mode in the East of reckoning time would correspond to about ten. Possession of the city would probably be about three or four hours after the entry through the landward walls. Leonard says : ' Necdum Phoebus orbis perlustrat hemisphaerium et tota urbs a paganis in praedam occupatur.'