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 384 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE Later During the long reign of Mahomet his attention was to^epeopie again and again directed to the repeopling of his capital, capital. j n addition to the attempts already mentioned, Critobulus recounts many other efforts made with the same object. But the sultan's inducements mostly failed. The Chris- tians mistrusted his promises, and experience showed that they were justified in so doing. Mahomet addressed himself to the Greek noble families and endeavoured to persuade them to return to the city. He publicly promised that all who came back and could prove their nobility and descent should be treated with even more distinction than had been shown to them under the emperor and should continue to enjoy the same rank as before. Belying on this promise, a number of them returned, on the feast of St. Peter. They, however, paid dearly for their credulity. Either the promise which had been given was of the hasty, spasmodic kind which has often characterised the orders of most of the Ottoman sultans and was repented of, or it had been given treacherously with no idea of its being kept. The heads of the nobles soon sullied the steps of Mahomet's court. 1 The repeopling which could not be done by persuasion was attempted more successfully by force. In 1458, while Mahomet was attacking Corinth his army made a raid in the neighbouring country and brought in more than three thousand prisoners, men, women and children. These were sent to settle outside the walls of Constantinople, on the lands which had been devastated before the siege. In the following year the sultan returned from the Peloponnesus. The artisans whom he had captured were settled in the capital ; the remainder in the neighbour- hood. In the same year he ordered that the most well-to-do inhabitants of Amastris on the Black Sea, including all the Armenian merchants, should be sent to the capital. It was partly to employ the workmen thus brought together that he ordered the construction of the mosque which bears his name. 1 Commentari di Tlieo. Spandugino Cantacusino.